AND  TRAD 


BISHOP  AND  KELLER 


jitMmmmMmmmMmimmmmmimmmmmmimmtmtmmmimmim iiwiniiiiiniiiB 


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THIS    BOOK  CARDI  . 


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University  Research  Library 


JAN 


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This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

JAN  5     1950 


I93i 


^OCT  2  5   193S 
ur.M  R      1935 

DEC     2  1935 


JAN     3  )93b 
5EP  2  6  1942 

DEC  4     1942 
M^    !942 

Form  L-9-5»n-5,'24 


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■AND   THE    NEED    OF    A    WOKLU    OF    MEN    FOR    ME."  —  Browning 


.^> 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


HISTORICAL  AND  DESCRIPTIVE 
ACCOUNT  OF  THEIR  DEVELOP- 
MENT IN  THE   UNITED  STATES 


BY 


AVARD  LONGLEY  BISHOP 

PROFESSOR    OF    BUSINESS    ADMINISTRATION    IN    THE    SHEFFIELIJ 
SCIENTIFIC    SCHOOL    OF    YALE    UNIVERSITY 


ALBERT  GALLOWAY  KELLER 

PROFESSOR   OF   THE    SCIENCE   OF    SOCIETY    IN    YALE    UNIVERSITY 


GINN  AND  COMPANY 

BOSTON     •     NEW    Y(JRK     •     rillCAOU     •     LONDON 
ATLANTA     •     DALLAS     •     COLUMHUS     •     SAN    FRANCISCO 


-^8^55 


( ()i-VRi(;irr,  i9is,  iiv  .ward  L()\(;i,i;v   lusiioi' 

AM)    ALBEKT   (iAl.LOWAV    Kl.I.M  K 

ENTF.RK.n   AT   STATIONERS'   HALL 

ALL    KUillTS    RESliUVED 

218.10 


IjLNN  and  company  •  FRU- 
FKIETORS  •  BOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


35+ 


PREFACE 

The  aim  of  this  book  is  to  present  a  simple  but  adequate 
account  of  the  development  and  present  status  of  this  country's 
industrial  and  commercial  life.  Representative  industries  are 
treated  in  the  several  chapters,  and  considerable  attention  is  given 
to  agencies  and  methods  of  distribution.  But  the  dominant  pur- 
pose of  the  authors  has  been  to  afford  a  perspective  of  our 
workaday  life  as  a  living  and  developing  whole.  It  is  hoped 
that  the  student  may  carry  away  from  these  pages  the  concep- 
tion, not  of  a  series  of  unrelated  methods  of  earning  a  living  but 
rather  of  a  working  together  of  us  all  into  what  we  may  well  call 
the  nation's  life. 

War  times  are  not  normal  times,  at  any  rate  for  industry  and 
commerce.  The  whole  economic  organization  must  at  such  periods 
be  adjusted  to  the  dominant  issue.  What  we  have  to  say,  there- 
fore, refers  for  the  most  part,  and  unless  otherwise  specified,  to 
normal  conditions  under  peace.  Doubtless  the  world  conflict  will 
have  a  powerful  influence  in  shaping  the  future  life  and  destiny 
of  this  nation  ;  but  amidst  the  uncertainties  and  distractions  of 
the  time  we  cannot  well  estimate  the  scope  of  that  influence 
nor  is  it  safe  to  predict  what  results  will  come  to  pass  in  the 
ensuing  years  of  peace.  In  any  case,  it  is  well  for  the  young 
American  to  know  where  his  country  was  when  the  great  era  of 
dislocation  and  readjustment  was  ushered  in,  for  then  he  has 
at  least  one  reliable  landmark  from  which  to  judge  as  to  the 
future  national  course  which  he  must  assist  in  charting  out. 

In  this  book  we  have  not  tried  to  set  down  minutely  accurate 
statistics  ;  we  have  used  round  numbers  that  can  be  more  easily 


iv  INDlsrRV   AND  TRADE 

retained  in  memory  ;  but  we  regard  them  as  entirely  representa- 
tive of  essential  conditions.  They  represent  such  fidelity  to  actual 
circumstances  as  is  demanded  for  a  perspective  view. 

The  authors  have  drawn  freely  upon  the  standard  treatises  in 
the  various  lines  touched  upon  in  the  text,  such  as  conservation, 
immigration,  transportation,  and  industry  and  trade  in  general, 
and  much  use  has  been  made  of  government  publications,  espe- 
cially those  of  the  Census  Bureau.  Our  obligation  to  such  sources 
is  a  general  one  scarcely  admitting  of  specification. 

THE  AUTHORS 
New  Haven,  Connecticut 


CONTENTS 


PACE 

Introduction ' 

PART  I.    BASIC  FACTORS  IN  OUR  INDUSTRY:    LAND 
AND   PEOPLE 

CHAPTER 

I.  Productive    Areas    and    Physical    Factors    affecting 

Production 5 

II.  Natural  Resources 20 

III.  The  Human  Element 33 

IV.  Social  Development 44 

PART  II.    AGRICULTURAL  INDUSTRIES 

V.  Cereals 55 

VI.  Vegetables  and  Fruits 70 

VII.  Sugar       83 

VIII.  Cotton 92 

PART   III.    ANIMAL  INDUSTRIES 

IX.  Cattle ;     ....  105 

X.  Swtne  and  Sheep 118 

XI.  Horses  and  Mules 133 

XII.   Fisheries 140 

PART   IV.    MINERAL   INDUSTRIES 

.\III.  Coal  and  Petroleum   153 

XIV.  Iron 166. 

.\V.  Gold  and  Silver 173 

.\'VI.  Other  Minerals 182 


vi  IXmsiRV  AND  TRADE 

ClIArTUR  I'AGn 

rAR'I"   W    MANlFACrrRlNC    INDISTRIKS 

X\'ll.  Ai>\ANTA(.i:s  oi"  THI-:  1'mti;i)  Stati'.s  i-ok  Mami-ai  itk- 

isc.  AM)  Tiuc  Localization  oi'  Indi'stkiks  ....  193 

Win.   Food  and  Kindkkd  Products 210 

.Xl.X.  Metallic  I'KoorcTs 222 

XX.  Textilks 233 

XXI.     Ll'MBER   AND    PAPER 245 

XXII.  Leather  and  Rchber 259 

XXIII.  Chemicals  and  Dvestuffs 273 

XXI\'.  Electrical  ]\L\chinerv  and  Apharatiis 284 

PART  M.    TRANSPORTATION 

f  XXV.  Beginnings  of  the  American  Transportation  System  .  291 

■  XXVL  Turnpikes  and  Canals 304 

.\X\'n.  Railroads 317 

X.W'III.  Natural  Waterways  and  the  Merchant  Marine      .  330 
XXLX.  The    Influence   of   Transportation   upon  A.merican 

Industrial  Develop.ment 345 

PART  VII.    THE  PROMOTION  OF  AMERICAN   INDUSTRIES 

XXX.  International  Competition  for  Industrial  and  Com- 
mercial Supre.macy 353 

XXXI.  Marketing 3^^~ 

XXXII.  The   Financing   of   Industry  and  the   Deyelopmknt 

of  Corporations 375 

XXXIII.  Labor  Adjustments 3^5 

QUESTIONS 401 

INDEX 419 


K^^''^,  7  '  ,^. 


t:^m^^.^^ 


-^  *^.; 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

INTRODUCTION 

It  will  not  be  long  before  every  school  student  is  "  out  in  the 
world."  That  is  what  he  or  she  is  getting  ready  for  during  the 
school  years.  There  is  a  living  to  make  and  a  life  to  lead,  and 
all  must  get  into  the  game.  But  it  is  poor  business  jumping  into 
a  game  whose  conditions  and  rules  we  do  not  know.  We  don't 
want  to  make  a  hit  and  then  run  to  third  instead  of  first,  or  we 
shall  pretty  soon  be  sitting  on  the  bench,  watching  better-informed 
people  play. 

The  game  this  book  deals  with  —  the  game  of  labor  and  industry 
—  is  one  we  cannot  stay  out  of  unless  we  want  to  be  professional 
loafers  or  tramps.  We  want  to  take  part  in  winning  prosperity 
for  our  country,  and  for  ourselves  along  with  it.  No  country  is 
truly  prosperous  if  its  people  are  afraid  of  work.  The  industries 
of  a  country  are  the  basis  of  its  well-being.  Yet  mere  work  or 
industry  is  not  enough  ;  the  labors  of  us  all  must  be  intelligent  if 
they  are  to  set  us  high  among  the  nations  and  peoples.  And  that 
means  that  we  must  be  thoroughly  informed  about  what  we  have 
to  do  with,  here  in  America,  and  how  we  can  best  put  it  to  use. 
We  shall  win  out  as  a  people,  and  also  as  individuals,  in  proportion 
as  we  possess  wide  and  exact  knowledge. 

We  want  to  know  what  is  being  done  in  the  industrial  and  busi- 
ness world  so  that  we  can  better  decide  where  to  put  in  our  efforts 


2  INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 

to  best  advantage.  And  not  that  alone  —  \vc  also  need  to  know 
what  has  been  done  in  the  past ;  for  that  will  show  us  how  things 
have  come  to  be  what  they  are,  and  will  give  us  hints  as  to  how 
they  can  be  improved  still  more.  Knowing  about  the  history  of  our 
industries  furnishes  us  with  a  sort  of  map  or  chart  of  our  country's 
life  from  which  we  can  the  more  readily  lay  out  our  future  course. 

Successful  peoples  have  always  had  to  learn  what  they  had  to 
do  with  and  how  best  to  use  it.  The  young  Indian  brave  had  to 
know  what  game  there  was,  where  to  find  it,  and  how  to  la}'  hand 
on  it,  or  he  failed  in  his  career  as  a  hunter.  He  must  know 
where  the  best  flint  was  to  be  found  for  his  arrowheads,  where 
he  could  most  easily  ford  the  rivers,  how  to  dry  and  preserve 
skins  and  meat,  and  many  another  practical  thing.  He  must  know 
the  rules  of  warfare  and  the  chase,  so  that  he  might  be  a  help 
and  not  a  hindrance  to  his  fellows.  If  he  learned  all  this  —  and 
it  took  effort  to  do  so  —  he  became  a  respected  and  admired 
member  of  his  tribe.    He  made  himself  a  career. 

It  is  the  same  with  us.  We  must  know  where  the  iron  and 
copper  are  and  how  to  get  them  out ;  where  and  how  to  build 
roads  and  railways ;  how  to  mill  and  market  wheat  and  corn ;  how 
to  build  ships  and  sail  them.  We  must  know  the  rules  of  industry 
and  business  and  how  to  be  a  help  and  not  a  hindrance  to  our 
fellow  citizens.  If  we  learn  all  this  —  and  it  will  take  study 
to  do  that  —  we  shall  become  respected  and  solid  citizens  of  the 
Republic.  We  shall  each  make  a  career.  We  shall  be  able  to 
pull  our  own  weight,  and  more,  in  the  boat.  There  can  be  no 
greater  satisfaction  in  life  than  that. 

To  bear  an  intelligent  part  in  the  destiny  of  the  nation,  as  well 
as  to  make  a  personal  success  for  ourselves,  we  must  know  our 
land  and  its  people.  What  sort  of  a  land  have  we,  and  what  sort 
of  a  population  ?  Then,  what  can  we  get  out  of  the  land  ?  Shall 
we  try  to  raise  bananas  in  Maine,  or  fish  for  cod  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi, or  mine  for  coal  in  Florida  ?  We  need  to  know  our 
best  resources  and  where  they  are,  and  not  be  easy  marks  for 
confidence-men   or   robber-nations.     Cotton   and    coal,    meat   and 


INTRODUCTION  3 

wheat  —  these  are  not  dull,  uninteresting"  things.  They  are  what 
we  live  by,  as  a  nation,  and  win  success  with.  It  is  interesting 
to  watch  a  big  train  sweep  by ;  but  it  is  more  fascinating  to  think 
of  the  endless  stream  of  commodities  which  it  helps  to  move 
and  of  the  trade  which  takes  things  from  the  hands  of  men 
who  never  heard  of  us  (and  who  live,  perhaps,  halfway  around 
the  globe)  and   delivers  them  at  our  doors. 

Understanding  the  workings  of  industry  and  commerce  helps 
in  the  game  of  living  —  that  is  clear  enough.  But  it  does  more. 
It  gives  one  a  wider  vision  of  things.  You  look  at  all  the  busy 
life  of  your  country  and  of  the  world,  and  you  see  it  as  a  great 
panorama  of  human  beings  and  nations  working  together  to 
make  human  life  a  fuller  and  happier  thing.  This  is  an  inter- 
esting thought  ;  and  that  sort  of  thought,  and  a  widened  vision, 
make  one's  own  life  more  full  and  satisfying.  The  happiest  man, 
said  one  wise  writer,  is  the  man  with  the  greatest  number  of 
interesting  thoughts. 

It  is  well  worth  while  to  know  things,  and  particularly  worth 
while,  in  this  age,  to  know  the  fundamental  facts  about  our 
nation's  life.  Some  of  these  we  are  about  to  recount  in  the 
pages  that  follow  ;  and  we  shall  begin  with  the  most  fundamental, 
by  considering  the  land  and  the  people  that  go  under  the  name 
America. 


.,..■■>■■  .:V,    ../■^■.:"-i>''^*;*v,„,  .,^ 


i<u. 


PART    I.     BASIC    FACTORS    IN    OUR 
INDUSTRY:    LAND   AND    PEOPLE 


CHAPTER  I 

PRODUCTIVE  AREAS  AND  PHYSICAL  FACTORS  AFFECTING 
PRODUCTION 

Land.  ^The  basis  of  all  life  on  earth  is  land.  Plants,  animals, 
and  human  beings  alike  live  on  the  land  and  from  it.  Each  of 
them  requires  a  certain  space  upon  which  to  live,  for  they  all  are 
subject  to  the  law  of  gravitation,  which  draws  them  down  to  the 
earth  whether  they  will  or  not.  And  all  living  beings  require,  in 
order  that  they  shall  continue  to  live,  certain  chemical  elements 
which  must  be  derived  from  the  soil.  Without  plenty  of  land- 
area  there  cannot  be  an  abundance  of  plant  life,  animal  life,  or 
human  life.  In  particular,  there  can  be  no  great  and  ]>)])ul()us 
nation  unless  that  nation  possesses  wide  areas  of  land. 

Land-wealth  of  the  United  States.  The  American  nation  has 
been  favored  in  this  respect.  '  There  has  always  been  more  than 
enough  land  for  the  use  of  its  population.  As  the  nation  has 
grown  from  its  small  beginnings  in  colonial  times,  wide  areas 
have  been  added  to  its  holdings,  and  the  ])()pulation  has  always 
had  plenty  of  space  over  which  to  spread  and  within  which  to 
develop  its  life.  In  fact,  within  recent  times  we  have  acc|uired 
areas  in  ])arts  of  the  world  (juite  distant  from  us,  so  that  tlu-re  is 
a  good  deal  of  our  territor\'  which  does  not  belong  to  "   I'lic  I   nilcd 


6  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

States  Proper."  Such  regions  are  Alaska,  the  PhiUppines,  Porto 
Rico,  and  the  X'irgin  Islands. 

Area  of  The  United  States  Proper.  In  this  book  we  are  to  give 
our  attention  almost  wholly  to  the  United  States  proper  and  its 
industrial  activities  ;  that  is,  to  that  portion  of  our  territory  which 
lies,  east  and  west,  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  and 
between  Canada,  on  the  north,  and  Mexico  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  on  the  south.  This  area  includes  about  three  million 
square  miles  —  a  figure  which  may  mean  more  to  us  if  we  recall 
that  each  of  these  square  miles  includes  six  hundred  and  forty 
acres.  This  is  an  immense  area ;  the  United  States  is  nearly  as 
large  as  the  whole  continent  of  Europe.  The  distances  in  this 
country  are  vast :  that  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  across  the 
country,  is  about  twenty-five  hundred  miles,  or  nearly  as  far  as 
the  direct  steamship  route  across  the  Atlantic ;  while  the  distance 
between  our  northern  and  southern  boundaries  is  about  twelve 
hundred  miles.  It  is  evident  that  we  are  not  likely  to  suffer,  for 
some  time  to  come,  from  lack  of  land. 

General  location  of  our  land.  Mere  quantity  of  land  does  not 
count  for  so  much  by  itself  ;  the  land  must  be  so  located  as  to 
be  of  advantage  to  the  people  occupying  it.  The  United  States 
possesses  great  advantages  in  being  situated  in  the  middle  of 
the  North  American  continent,  neither  too  far  north  nor  too  far 
south.  This  means  that  its  climate  is  favorable,  as  we  shall  see, 
for  the  development  of  a  vigorous  civilization  based  on  a  strong 
industrial  life.  In  fact,  it  has  been  very  fortunate  for  us  that  we 
were  located  north,  rather  than  south,  of  the  equator ;  for  human 
civilization  has  been  developed  in  the  north  latitudes  rather  than 
in  the  south,  so  that  our  neighboring  nations  have  been  those  of 
Europe  and  Asia  rather  than  those  of  Africa  and  Australia. 
There  is  much  more  land  in  the  Northern  Hemisphere  than  in  the 
Southern,  and  so  we  have  been  surrounded  by  populated  land-areas 
rather  than  by  waste  regions  of  salt  water.  Also,  as  civilization 
has  developed,  it  has  been  fortunate  for  us  that  we  have  bordered 
upon  the  narrower  oceans  of  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  for  the 


FACTORS  AFFECTING  PRODUCTION  7 

water  has  become  a  means  of  connection  and  communication 
rather  than  a  barrier  between  nations. 

Quality  of  the  land.  Land  may  be  large  in  amount  and  not 
so  badly  located,  but  if  its  quality  is  poor  it  is  not  of  much  use. 
The  Desert  of  Sahara  is  large  enough,  and  for  many  centuries 
it  has  been  near  lands  of  a  high  civilization,  but  the  quality  of 
its  land  is  such  that  it  has  never  supported  more  than  a  very 
scanty  population.  It  is  also  fortunate  for  a  country  if  its  land 
is  not  all  of  the  same  sort.  Our  country  is  not  noted  for  uni- 
formity and  monotony  of  physical  features  ;  its  land  is  of  many 
types,  yielding  a  corresponding  variety  of  natural  products,  and 
thus  supporting  a  great  many  different  kinds  of  industry.  The 
physical  features  of  the  United  States  have,  from  the  very  be- 
ginning, had  a  marked  influence  in  determining  the  occupations 
and  activities  of  the  people.  Different  areas  of  our  land  have  had 
contrasting  qualities,  due  to  differences  in  climate,  weather,  alti- 
tude, kinds  of  soil,  and  other  factors,  which  determine  what  the 
quality  of  the  land  shall  be.  But  the  quality  of  the  land  deter- 
mines its  productive  capacities,  and  the  productive  capacities  deter- 
mine the  industries.  It  is  these  industries  which  we  are  chiefly 
interested  in  studying,  and  so  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  under- 
stand beforehand  the  nature  of  our  productive  areas,  in  their 
broad  general  outlines. 

Quality  of  men.  No  matter  how  excellent  the  location  and  quality 
of  the  land,  it  is  useless  without  the  application  of  labor  upon  it. 
This  country  was  of  no  use  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  no  matter 
how  extended  and  fertile  its  area,  until  a  population  had  occu- 
pied it  which  could  make  use  of  the  country's  resources.  But  the 
quality  of  any  population  is  largely  dependent  upon  certain  physi- 
cal features,  such  as  climate,  the  influence  of  which  upon  the  life 
of  human  beings  determines,  in  large  part,  what  they  are  and  what 
they  can  do.  In  viewing  the  physical  factors  affecting  production, 
to  which  we  now  come,  it  is  necessary  to  consider  their  influence 
not  only  upon  the  land  and  its  crops  but  upon  the  human  beings 
who  are  to  develop  the  land  and  raise  products  from  it. 


8  LNDLSTRV  AM)  TRADE 

riivsicAi.  Factors  ini  lli:ncin(;  pRoni-CTiON 

Before  we  can  enter  upon  the  description  of  our  natural  areas 
we  must  consider  the  general  effects  of  certain  physical  factors 
which  really  determine  the  quality  of  land  and  men  and  the  possi- 
bilities of  production.  The  more  special  effects  of  these  factors 
will  be  seen  when  we  come  to  take  up  the  several  special  indus- 
tries. Some  of  these  factors  which  affect  production  have  already 
been  named ;  we  shall  consider  climate,  latitude,  altitude,  nearness 
to  the  sea,  winds,  ocean  currents,  topography,  rainfall,  and  soil. 

Climate.  The  importance  of  climate  as  a  controlling  factor  of 
a  country's  destiny  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  It  exercises  a 
far-reaching  influence  upon  plant  and  animal  life  and  upon  that 
of  human  beings.  Climate  is  really  a  combination  of  the  elements 
of  heat  and  cold,  moisture  and  dryness.  The  plant  life  of  the 
tropics  forms  a  striking  contrast  with  that  of  the  arctic  regions ; 
and,  even  within  the  same  latitude,  the  vegetation  of  arid  regions 
is  very  unlike  that  of  humid  regions.  Again,  the  animal  life  of 
the  tropics  or  of  arid  regions  may  be  contrasted  with  that  of  the 
polar  areas  or  of  the  damp  forests.  Human  life  also,  in  these 
several  regions,  shows  great  differences,  which  correspond  to  the 
differences  in  plant  and  animal  life. 

Factors  of  climate.  Probably  no  other  physical  factor  has  so 
great  an  influence  in  man's  activities  in  getting  a  living,  that  is, 
in  his  industrial  activity,  as  has  climate.  There  are  a  number  of 
factors  which  unite  to  determine  the  character  of  climate,  such 
as  latitude,  altitude,  nearness  to  the  sea,  winds,  ocean  currents, 
and  general  topography.  All  of  these  combine  to  affect  tempera- 
ture and  rainfall ;  that  is,  degree  of  heat  and  degree  of  moisture. 

Latitude.  The  amount  of  heat  received  from  the  sun  at  any 
given  place  depends  chiefly  upon  latitude.  An  excess  of  cold  or 
of  heat  affects  normal  human  effort.  It  is  in  the  temperate  zones 
that  labor  can  be  carried  on  most  steadily  and  with  the  greatest 
success.  Here  physical  toil  can  go  on  the  whole  day,  either  within 
doors  or  without,  for  practically  the  whole  year.    In  the  colder 


FACTORS  AFFECTING   PRODUCTION  9 

regions  very  strenuous  effort  results  in  little  more  than  the  mere 
maintenanee  of  life;  in  the  hot  regions  human  energy  is  weakened 
and  there  is  a  strong  desire  to  avoid  work  ;  but  in  the  temperate 
zones  steady  eftort  is  not  only  possible  but  good  for  one,  and 
when  it  has  been  put  forth  its  reward  is  generous.  It  is,  there- 
fore, a  very  important  condition  of  the  industrial  life  of  the 
United  States  that  the  whole  country  is  within  the  temperate 
zone  and  that  only  a  small  portion  of  it  is  even  subtropical.  It 
will  be  seen  that  the  most  vigorous  industrial  life  of  the  country 
is  in  those  portions  which  lie  north  of  even  this  subtropical  belt. 

Altitude.  Elevation  above  sea  level  is  a  factor  which  has  a 
marked  influence  upon  temperature.  As  we  ascend  from  the  sea 
the  cold  gradually  increases,  so  that  even  at  the  equator  the  moun- 
tain tops  ma}'  be  covered  with  snow  ;  the  side  of  a  high  mountain 
may  show  belts  of  plant  life  all  the  way  from  equatorial  vegeta- 
tion at  the  base  to  arctic  plants  near  the  summit.  Hence  w'e  see 
that  in  the  matter  of  temperature  a  high  altitude  is  equivalent 
to  a  high  latitude. 

Nearness  to  the  sea.  Land  bordering  on  the  sea  takes  its  tem- 
perature to  a  large  degree  from  that  of  the  water.  The  water  both 
receives  and  radiates  heat  more  slowly  than  does  the  land  ;  and 
so  nearness  to  the  sea  levels  down  the  extremes  of  temperature 
and  makes  the  climate  of  the  shore  more  even  than  that  of  inland 
areas.  The  weather-changes  in  a  single  day  in  a  region  with  a 
continental  climate  are  often  greater  than  those  of  an  entire  year 
in  a  region  with  a  tropical,  maritime  climate. 

Winds.  However,  since  winds  are  very  effective  in  carrying 
heat  and  cold,  a  continental  climate  may,  by  reason  of  prevailing 
winds,  be  found  near  the  coasts  of  continents,  and  vice  versa. 
The  winds  also  carry  moisture  over  the  earth,  and  thus  are,  in 
another  way,  efficient  in  determining  climate.  For  example,  the 
trade  winds  and  the  monsoons  are  specialists  in  the  conveying 
of  moisture ;  the  very  life  of  India  depends  upon  the  monsoons. 
Winds  are,  therefore,  important  factors  in  determining  where  man 
shall  live  and  what  he  shall  do. 


10  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Ocean  currents.  It  may  be  said,  first;  that  winds  help  deter- 
mine the  course  of  ocean  currents.  These  currents  greatly  modify 
the  climate  of  certain  lands  through  their  effect  upon  the  tem- 
perature of  the  air  above  them.  For  example,  the  Gulf  Stream 
carries  so  large  a  body  of  relatively  warm  water  into  the  North 
Atlantic  that  it  is  effective  in  raising  the  temperature  of  the  winds 
which  blow  over  'it.  Hence  the  climate  of  western  Europe  is 
milder  and  more  humid  than  it  would  otherwise  be.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  cold  Labrador  current  keeps  the  eastern  coast  of  North 
America  cooler  —  a  contrast  which  becomes  more  forcible  when 
the  climate  of  England  is  compared  with  that  of  Labrador,  both 
countries  lying  in  about  the  same  latitude. 

Topography  and  aspect.  Topography  has  an  influence  upon 
both  temperature  and  rainfall.  In  the  valleys  of  mountains,  for 
example,  important  differences  in  temperature  occur  within  short 
distances.  The  fact,  also,  that  there  are  no  mountains  to  break 
the  wind  allows  the  entrance  of  cold  winds  from  the  north  upon 
the  central  plains  of  this  country.  Aspect  means  the  slope  of  the 
land  in  respect  to  the  sun  —  whether  the  slope  is  towards  the  sun 
or  away  from  it.  In  general,  in  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  regions 
having  a  southern  aspect  or  exposure  are  much  warmer  than 
regions  of  the  same  altitude  and  latitude  that  slope  toward  the 
north.  Wheat  grows  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Alps  at  twice 
the  altitude  reached  by  it  on  the  northern  slopes.  In  the  United 
States  a  favorable  location  for  gardens  and  orchards  is  on  hills 
with  a  southern  aspect ;  the  farmers  say  that  crops  in  such  places 
"  get  more  sun."    In  the  Southern  Hemisphere  the  reverse  is  true. 

Rainfall.  The  annual  rainfall  upon  the  earth  varies  greatly  for 
different  regions  ;  almost  all  places  have  some  rain  or  snow  at  some 
time  during  the  year,  but  the  total  annual  fall  of  rain  varies  from 
less  than  one  inch  to  more  than  four  hundred  inches.  The  amount 
of  rainfall  in  a  region  affects  the  character  and  quantity  of  plant  life  ; 
this  determines  the  character  and  quantity  of  animal  life,  including 
that  of  human  beings  ;  and  the  character  of  the  plant  and  animal 
life  determines  largely  what  man  can  be  and  do  in  the  locality. 


FACTORS  AFFECTING  PRODUCTION  ii 

Rainfall  and  agriculture.  A  region  with  less  than  ten  inches 
of  rainfall  annually  would  be  unfavorable  for  human  life  ;  and 
an  average  of  twenty  inches  is  desirable,  if  not  absolutely  neces- 
sary, for  agriculture.  But  it  should  always  be  remembered  that 
the  time  when  the  rain  comes  is  more  important  than  the  yearly 
amount ;  over  twenty  inches  would  not  be  enough  if  it  fell  at  the 
wrong  time  of  the  year,  say,  in  the  winter,  w^hile  less  than  twenty 
inches  would  suffice  if  it  all  came  during  the  growing  season  for 
crops.  A  fine  corn  crop  has  been  reported  from  Kansas  when 
the  rainfall  was  only  eight  inches  for  the  year  ;  but  in  this  case 
the  rain  came  mainly  in  the  spring  and  early  summer.  Large 
areas  of  the  United  States  have  a  fair  amount  of  rainfall,  which, 
fortunately,  comes  usually  during  the  growing  season  and  meets 
the  needs  of  our  crops. 

Irrigation.  Men  have  learned  to  bring  water  to  places  where 
it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  ;  irrigation 
is  now  making  it  possible  to  cultivate  with  profit  areas  deficient 
in  rainfall. 

Soil.  By  soil  we  mean  the  outer  covering  of  the  earth,  which 
rests  upon  the  solid  rock  as  a  sort  of  mantle.  Sometimes  it  is 
only  a  few  inches  thick,  sometimes  several  hundred  feet.  It  is 
formed  from  the  rock  by  the  action  of  physical  and  chemical 
forces.  Since  soil  is,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  ultimate  source 
of  food,  shelter,  and  clothing,  its  power  to  yield  these  necessary 
articles  must  finally  determine  the  quantity  and  quality  of  human 
life.  Where  soil  is  poor,  there  is  a  small  population,  and  vice 
versa.  The  cultivation  of  the  soil  is  the  basis  of  civilization, 
and  from  it  come  the  raw  products  of  industry. 

Plant  foods.  In  order  that  plants  may  grow,  there  must  be 
present  in  the  soil  certain  chemical  elements  known  as  essential 
plant  foods  ;  if  these  are  lacking,  plant  life  will  not  flo^^-ish,  un- 
less they  arc  introduced  in  the  form  of  fertilizers.  There  are  nine 
essential  plant  foods  :  carbon,  hydrogen,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  lime, 
magnesia,  potash,  phosphorus,  and  sulphur.  There  are  elements 
other  than  these  in  soils,  but  they  are  not  absolutely  necessary  to 


12 


INDUSTRY  AND    TRADK 


support  plant  life.  A  productive  soil  must  have  water  in  it ;  this 
appears  as  a  minute  film  surrounding  the  soil  particles  and  hold- 
iniT  in  solution  the  various  elements  essential  for  the  support  of 
i:)lant  life.  Soils  also  contain  air,  without  which  they  are  barren  ; 
this  air  supply  can,  of  course,  be  increased  by  the  loosening  of  the 
soil.    "  A  soil,"  says  Van  Hise,  '"  perfect  in  chemical  and  physical 

condition,  containing  neither 
water  nor  air,  could  not  by 
any  possibility  sustain  life." 
Productivity  of  soil.  In  a 
country  as  large  as  the  United 
States  there  are  to  be  found 
many  different  kinds  of  soil, 
which  vary  greatly  in  their 
suitability  for  the  different 
crops  raised  by  man.  As  a 
general  rule,  a  coarse  gravelly 
soil  is  rather  barren  ;  a  lime- 
stone soil,  a  clayey  soil  (if  not 
too  fine),  or  a  glacial  soil  is 
productive  —  in  the  United 
States  some  of  the  best  food- 
producing  areas  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  glacial  soil. 

Soil  and  climate.  Soil  and 
climate  together  form  a  basic 
combination  in  determining  the  variety  and  abundance  of  plant  life, 
and  so  of  the  animal  life  which  is  dependent  upon  it.  But  man's 
responsibility  in  the  use  of  these  two  factors  is  very  diverse. 
Climate  is  a  thing  which  man  cannot  change ;  while  it  is  within 
his  power  to  make  the  soil  poor  by  unscientific  use  of  it,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  make  it  better  by  careful  use.  He  may  there- 
fore rail  at  the  weather  or  the  climate  all  he  pleases  and  defy 
anyone  to  lay  the  fault  at  his  door ;  but  if  he  foolishly  ex- 
hausts his  land,   plainly  he  has  only  himself  to  blame. 


LEADIXG    CITIES    ALONG    THE 
"  FALL   LINE  " 


TYPICAL  EARLY   MANUFACTURING   PLANT 


A   MODERN    MANUFACTORY  —  ROLLING   MlLUj 
■3 


il.\i\K<M\  i.M.    A    i-ihi.i)   BEFORE   PLANTING   Li 


FIFTY    PLOWS    DRAWN    BY   THREE   TRACTORS 
14 


FACTORS  AFFECTING   PRODUCTION 


15 


Natural  Productive  Areas  of  the  United  States 

Roughly  speaking,  the  one-hundredth  meridian  divides  the 
United  States  into  two  nearl\-  equal  but  sharply  contrasting 
divisions.  From  the  standpoint  of  elevation  and  rainfall  the 
eastern  half  is  low  and  humid  and  the  w-estern  half  high  and 
dry.  This  is  the  broadest  division  which  we  can  make.  There  is 
another,  along  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  which  divides  the  South 


A    MOIJEKX    HAY    LOADER 


and  North  ;  but  it  has  not  been  so  important  in  the  development 
of  our  industries.  Within  these  two  eastern  and  western  divisions 
are  other  less  extensive  areas,  or  natural  regions.  The  geog- 
raphers divide  and  group  these  lesser  regions  in  several  ways, 
but  for  our  purposes,  because  we  are  to  study  the  industries  of 
the  country,  the  following  general  division  of  physical  areas  in 
the  United  States  may  be  made  :  (i)  the  Atlantic  Coastal  Plain  ; 
(2)  the  Appalachian  Mountains;  (3)  the  Central  Lowlands;  (4)  the 
Western  High  Plains;  (5)  the  Rocky  Mountains;  (6)  the  W^estern 
IMateaus  ;  (7)  the  Pacific  Slope. 

Atlantic  Coastal  Plain.     This  plain  is  bordered  by  a  fringe  of 
sand   reefs,  used   in   the   North   for  pleasure  resorts,  and   on   the 


i6 


INDl  SIKV   AM)    IRADP: 


Carolina  coast  for  growing  sea-island  cotton.  The  soil  of  the  plain 
is  'arranged  roughly  in  belts  ;  there  are  stretches  of  rich  agricul- 
tural land  bordering  on  others  which  are  somewhat  sandy  but 
covered  with  useful  trees.  The  inner  edge  of  the  coastal  plain 
furnishes  valuable  soil,  and  here  are  the  choice  agricultural  lands 
of  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  the  Carolinas.  Two  rows  of  cities 
mark  the  boundaries  of  this  plain  :  the  outer  row,  including  Nor- 
folk, Wilmington,  Charleston,  and  Savannah,  on  the  seacoast ;  the 
inner  row  marking  the  so-called  "  falh  line"  (p.  12).    This  is  a 


SHEEP    GRAZIXG    OX    THE    WllslERV    IHMI    PLAINS 


line  of  waterfalls,  furnishing  excellent  powder,  where  the  streams 
descend  to  the  coastal  plain.  The  region  is  well  supplied  with 
rain,  which  reaches  its  maximum  in  late  summer. 

Appalachian  Mountains.  These  include  the  eastern  highlands 
from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Georgia ;  they  are  not  an  agricultural 
district,  but  to  the  north  they  form  a  center  of  manufacturing  in 
New  England,  and,  farther  south,  one  of  coal  mining  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, West  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  Alabama.  Except  in  the 
Cumberland,  Shenandoah,  and  Tennessee  valleys,  mining  and 
lumbering,  rather  than  agriculture,  are  the  industries  of  the 
Appalachian  region.  Within  this  section  lie  centers  of  the  iron 
and  steel  industry,  such  as  Pittsburgh  and  Birmingham,  The 
maximum  rainfall  occurs  in  winter  and  spring. 


O  <D  "*  ':«  ^ 


FACTORS  AFFECTING  PRODUCTION 


17 


Central  Lowlands.  This  region  is  flat,  and  even  the  Great  Lakes 
are  portions  of  a  gently  sloping  plain.  The  soil  includes  the 
glacial  deposits  of  Michigan,  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Minnesota,  and 
the  alluvial  plain  of  the  Mississippi.  Here  is  found  a  variety  of 
fertile  lands  matched  in  but  few  parts  of  the  world.  This  central 
section  of  the  country,  between  the  Appalachians  and  the  one- 
hundredth  meridian,  is  a  great  agricultural  section,  and  is  devoted 


TAKING   OKK    I-KOM   A    MINE   IX    DUMP   CARS 


to  the  raising  of  wheat,  corn,  and  cotton.  The  annual  rainfall  is 
from  thirty  to  fifty  inches,  and  it  comes  at  times  when  the 
moisture  is  most  favorable  for  the  needs  of  crops  ;  it  is  very 
regular  on  the  Gulf  coast  and  shows  a  spring  and  fall  maximum 
along  the  Lakes. 

Western  High  Plains.  These  form  a  rather  continuous  plateau 
from  Canada  to  Mexico,  cut  here  and  there  into  sections  by 
streams    from    the    Rocky    Mountains.     ( )vving    to    the    deficient 


i8 


INDISTRV  AM)    IRADE 


rainfall,  agriculture  has  been  only  partially  successful  in  this 
region,  but  within  it  are  included  the  choicest  grazing  lands  of 
the  United  States. 

Rocky  Mountains.  These  mountains  extend  entirely  across 
the  country-  and  form  the  watershed  between  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  oceans.    Some  of  the  vallevs  of  this  region  are  good  for 


agriculture,  especially  fruit-growing :  but  since  level  stretches  of 
agricultural  land  are  rare  and  the  rainfall  scanty,  the  chief 
industr)'  is  mining. 

Western  Plateaus.  These  lie  between  the  Rockies  and  the 
Sierra  Nevada.  This  region  is  arid.  The  population  is  sparse ; 
it  is  concentrated  on  oases  and  in  narrow  valleys  where,  with  the 
aid  of  irrigation,  some  agriculture  is  possible.  The  rainfall  varies 
from  five  to  twent}*-four  inches,  but  is  generally  about  ten  to  fifteen 
inches.    Naturally  the  chief  industry  of  the  region  is  mining. 


FACTORS  AFFECTING  PRODUCTION  19 

Pacific  Slope.  The  Cascade  Range  and  the  Sierra  Nevada 
border  the  plateau  region  and  show  a  well-watered  westward  side 
with  a  good  growth  of  timber.  There  are  in  this  region  two 
valleys,  one  extending  south  from  Seattle  and  \'ancouver  and 
the  other  occupying  central  California.  The  northern  valley  has 
fifty  to  sixty  inches  of  rain,  which  may  be  expected  any  time  from 
October  to  May  ;  the  southern  valley  has  less  than  half  as  much 
rain.  The  lowlands  in  the  southern  part  of  California  are  prac- 
tically rainless.  The  population  is  engaged  in  tvvo  occupations  : 
mining  and  the  cultivation  of  these  two  valleys.  The  agricultural 
products  are  wheat,  fruit,  and  wine. 

Summary.  These  are  the  main  physical  regions  of  our  country. 
Their  character  determines  the  nature  of  their  population  and  of  the 
industries  which  this  population  develops.  Their  natural  resources, 
in  general,  are  a  great  national  asset,  and  certain  of  them,  such 
as  coal  and  iron,  are  essential  in  industr}'.  One  of  the  leading 
reasons  why  the  United  States  has  developed  into  such  an  im- 
portant industrial  nation  is  because  of  the  wealth  and  extent  of 
its  natural  resources  —  of  which  we  shall  now  make  a  survey. 


CHAPTER   II 


NATURAL  RESOURCES 


Products  of  Land 


Are  natural  resources  unlimited  ?  Natural  resources  are  prod- 
ucts of  nature  useful  to  man.  Some  of  them,  such  as  air  and 
sunlight,  seem  to  be  unlimited  in  quantity.  If  they  were  actually 
unlimited  in  quantity,  they  could  have  no  price  or  money  value  ; 
in  proportion  as  they  are  rare,  their  price  is  high.  Abundance  or 
scarcit}'  of  natural  resources  always  means  abundance  or  scarcity 
in  relation  to  population.  In  a  thinly  settled  countr)^,  air,  water, 
and  even  land  are  practically  unlimited  in  quantity  and  have  little 
or  no  money  value  ;  they  are  regarded  as  free  gifts  of  nature. 
But  in  a  crowded  city  block,  land  is  ver}'  valuable,  water  has 
to  be  bought,  and  good  air  and  sunlight  have  to  be  paid  for  in 
the  form  of  a  higher  rent. 

Wastefulness.  We  generally  regard  these  resources  as  unlimited 
and  free  until  we  are  made  to  see  that  they  are  not  so.  We  have 
regarded  fertility  of  the  soil  as  a  free  gift,  and  have  neglected  to 
preserve  it  by  restoring  to  the  earth  the  plant  foods  we  have  used 
out  of  it ;  we  have  not  spared  our  trees,  supposing  there  would 
always  be  plenty  of  them  because  once  there  were  forests  which 
the  population  of  tfiat  time  could  not  possibly  have  exhausted  ; 
we  have  polluted  our  streams.  Now,  as  our  population  has  in- 
creased, we  are  beginning  to  see  that  we  must  conserve  our  natural 
resources  if  we  are  going  to  have  them  ;  and  we  have  undertaken 


NATURAL  RESOURCES  21 

to  conserve,  first  of  all,  those  resources  which  we  can  see  to  be  not 
unlimited  in  amount,  and  which  will  be  unequal  to  the  present 
and  future   needs  of  the  nation. 

Conservation.  This  is  the  nation-wide  movement  for  conservation 
of  natural  resources.  But  when  we  speak  of  such  conservation  we 
do  not  mean  that  the  natural  resources  which  we  see  are  limited 
in  quantity  shall  not  be  touched  —  shall  remain  undeveloped ;  we 
mean  that  they  shall  be  so  wisely  used  that  we  shall  have  what  we 
need  without  lessening  the  stock  of  resources  for  succeeding  gen- 
erations. This  can  be  done  by  preventing  waste,  by  keeping  the 
soil  fertile,  by  planting  trees,  and  by  other  enlightened  methods. 

Utilization  of  natural  resources.  No  matter  where  man  lives, 
or  how  low  or  high  his  degree  of  civilization,  he  uses  the  natural 
resources  of  the  earth  to  supply  his  three  great  needs :  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter.  Civilized  man  has  made  use  of  dozens  of 
natural  resources  which  the  savage  formerly  inhabiting  a  region 
left  untouched.  The  Indians  had  a  constant  need  of  fuel,  and 
when  the  local  supply  of  wood  gave  out  they  moved  on  to  a  place 
where  there  was  more ;  they  thought,  in  fact,  that  the  reason  for 
the  coming  of  the  white  man  was  that  he  was  in  search  of  wood. 
But  to-day  the  people  of  Pennsylvania,  for  example,  who  occupy 
the  for.mer  Delaware  Indian  tract,  have  a  choice  of  wood,  hard 
coal,  soft  coal,  coke,  petroleum,  natural  gas,  manufactured  gas, 
and  electricity. 

Their  mere  presence  not  enough.  \'ery  likely  there  are  resources 
in  nature  of  which  we  have  not  availed  ourselves  any  more  than 
did  the  Indians  in  the  case  of  natural  gas.  The  mere  presence 
of  the  resources  is  not  the  point ;  the  knowledge,  industry,  and 
energy  of  man  are  needed  if  anything  worth  while  is  to  be  done 
with  them.  It  is  true  enough  that  "  no  amount  of  human  fore- 
thought and  energy  will  give  a  country  beds  of  coal  and  iron  "  ; 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  those  beds  might  as  well  not  be  there 
if  the  population  is  too  ignorant  and  slothful  to  make  use  of  them. 
What  the  presence  of  natural  resources  does  is  to  suggest  and 
direct   the   lines  of  industrial   development.    They  do   not    make 


22  INDLSIRV  AM)    I'RADE 

a  people  rich  —  what  they  do  is  to  make  an  industrious  |x-o|)lc 
richer.  The  winning  combination  is  where  varied  and  abundant 
natural  resources  are  available  to  an  alert  and  industrious  people. 

Basis  of  our  material  progress.  Throughout  the  course  of  its 
national  development  the  United  States  has  made  great  material 
progress  in  all  lines  of  industry.  The  causes  of  this  success  are 
the  possession  of  the  best  and  largest  part  of  a  rich  continent, 
with  abundant  and  fertile  land,  a  healthful  and  invigorating  climate, 
excellent  mineral  supplies,  a  topography  permitting  of  easy  com- 
munication, and  other  advantages  which  will  be  recounted  as  we  go 
on.  These  may  be  considered,  if  we  wish  to  use  poetical  language, 
to  be  "gifts  of  nature." 

Inventory  of  our  resources.  In  this  country,  up  to  recent  years, 
we  proceeded  on  the  comfortable  theory  that  natural  resources 
were  vast  and  inexhaustible  ;  we  did  not  even  count  them  up  and 
estimate  their  quantity.  But  during  the  latter  years  of  the  last 
century  it  became  apparent  that  they  were  not  inexhaustible  — 
in  fact,  that  some  of  them  had  been  pretty  well  used  up,  not  to 
say  squandered  and  wasted.  In  1908  a  national  commission  was 
appointed  to  take  an  inventory  of  our  natural  resources  —  the 
first  systematic  survey  of  the  sort  which  we  ever  made  —  and  its 
report  was  transmitted  to  the  President  the  next  year.  It  showed, 
among  other  things,  what  these  natural  resources,  along  many 
lines,  had  been  before  they  were  used  at  all ;  what  part  of  them 
had  been  used  up  already ;  and  what  the  prospect  was  as  to  the 
future.  In  general,  it  clearly  revealed  that  this  continent  had  been 
very  copiously  endowed  by  nature  with  nearly  all  the  important 
resources  which  go  to  make  a  nation  rich  and  prosperous.  This 
report  is  a  large  and  detailed  affair;  what  we  need  here  is  a 
much  briefer  and  simpler  inventory  of  those  natural  national 
resources  which  form  the  foundation  of  American  industrial 
and  commercial  life. 

Mineral  resources.  The  mineral  resources  of  the  United  States 
are  much  superior  to  those  of  any  other  nation.  The  present 
annual  value  of  our  mineral  products  far  exceeds  that  shown  by 


NATURAL  RESOURCES 


23 


the  output  of  our  nearest  rivals.  Our  advantage  lies  in  the  fact 
that  we  have  very  copious  sources  for  practically  all  the  minerals 
that  are  basic  in  industrial  development ;  of  the  minerals  important 
in  industry  we  produce  all  but  platinum,  tin,  and  nickel.  In  the 
matter  of  minerals  we  are  all  but  independent  of  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

Coal.     Countries  with  an  abundance  of  coal  and  iron  enjoy,  in 
this  age  of  the  world,  a  surpassing  advantage  ;  it  has  been  said 


Fine  ruling    =  Known  coal  fields 
Coarse  rulings  Doubtful  coal  fields 

-— .  =  Coal  under  deep  cover 


COAL   AREAS   OF   THK    rXITEI)   STATES 


that  they  are  more  than  likely  to  be  the  ruling  nations.  Iron  is 
one  of  our  commonest  metals ;  and  our  coal  deposits  outrank,  both 
in  quantity  and  quality,  those  of  any  other  country  in  the  world. 
As  it  is  very  difficult  to  determine  the  extent  of  mineral  deposits, 
we  have  to  rely  upon  the  estimates  of  those  best  qualified  to  judge, 
when  it  comes  to  the  question  as  to  how  much  coal  we  have. 
Some  have  said  that  our  coal  deposits  exceed  those  of  all  other 
countries  combined;  and  one  expert  believes  even  that  they  repre- 
sent from  sixty  to  seventy  per  cent  of  all  the  coal  deposits  yet 
discovered  in  the  world.     It  has  been  figured  out  that  there  are 


24  INDUSTRY  AND    TRADK 

about  live  luindred  thousand  square  miles  of  coal  area  in  this 
countr)-  —  an  area  equal  to  about  one  thirteenth  of  the  whole  sur- 
face of  the  United  States.  And  these  coal  fields  are  well  situated ; 
it  is  understood  that  coal  is  a  bulky  and  heavy  article  as  com- 
pared with  its  price  and  that  long  hauls  of  coal  are  a  handicap 
on  industiy,  so  that  it  is  a  great  advantage  to  manufacturers  to 
have  the  coal  fields  widely  scattered  over  the  country  instead  of 


H^^>T~~_ 

, '  • 

i 

//x '      ^ 

\'^ 

w$5 

1           £ 

\      \    ] 

W^" 

MT/ 

IRON    ORE   DEPOSITS   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 
After  Harder 

being  concentrated  in  a  few  places.  It  is  particularly  fortunate 
if  coal  deposits  are  located  not  very  far  from  iron  deposits.  But 
now,  if  we  place  one  point  of  a  compass  on  each  coal  area  in 
this  country  and  sweep  a  circle  with  a  radius  of  five  hundred 
miles,  practically  every  part  of  the  country  will  be  included  within 
a  circle.  This  represents  graphically  the  advantages  available  to 
American  manufacture. 

Iron.    Just  as  coal  is  the  most  important  nonmetal,  so  iron  is 
by  far  the  most  important  metal.     Industry  of  the  present  day 


NATURAL  RESOURCES  25 

is  built  on  iron  ;  there  is  scarcely  an  economic  activity  of  any  sort 
that  does  not  require  it.  ;We  need  not  recall  the  superior  physi- 
cal qualities  of  this  metal  which  make  it  indispensable  to  civiliza- 
tion. It  is  cheap,  because  it  is  common  and  is  easily  reduced  to 
the  metallic  state  ;  but  it  is  even  cheaper,  naturally,  where  it  is 
most  abundant  and  where  it  is  near  coal  deposits.  Iron  is  found 
in  nearly  every  state  in  the  Union,  and  at  the  present  time  is 


oil.    AM)    (,AS    l-IKLDS    OK    THF.    UNITED    STATES,    WUH     llll':    rKlNCll'AI.    OH. 

PIPE-LINES 

mined  for  blast-furnace  use  in  three  fifths  of  our  states.  This 
country  leads  all  others  in  the  annual  production  of  iron  ;  but,  in 
spite  of  the  wide  development  of  our  resources  along  this  line, 
only  a  small  fraction  of  the  known  deposits  has  been  touched. 

Petroleum.  The  known  areas  of  petroleum  fields  total,  for  this 
country,  about  eight  thousand  four  hundred  and  fifty  square  miles. 
In  spite  of  the  rapid  and  accelerated  production  since  the  fields 
were  first  tapped,  in  1859,  it  has  been  estimated  that  there  still 
remain  to  be  taken  from  the  ground  from  eight  to  ten  limes  as 
much  oil  as  has  been  extracted  up  to  date. 


26  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Natural  gas.  Natural  gas,  says  an  expert,  is  "  tlie  most  per- 
fect form  of  fuel  which  nature  has  furnished  us  "  ;  it  is  of  higher 
efficiency  than  the  so-called  "producer"  gas,  because  it  is  prac- 
tically free  from  nitrogen.  This  country  leads  the  world  in  the 
extent  t>f  natural-gas  fields,  having  a  combined  area  of  about  ten 
thousand  square  miles.  The  fields  are  scattered  widely  over  the 
country.  This  natural-gas  resource  affords,  perhaps,  the  worst 
example  of  reckless  waste  by  a  careless  people :  high-pressure 
wells  have  not  been  capped  ;  other  wells  have  been  set  on  fire 
and  allowed  to  burn  indefinitely ;  in  getting  the  petroleum,  with 
which  the  gas  is  associated,  the  gas  has  been  allowed  to  escape 
freely  into  the  air,  with  no  attempt  to  save  it ;  and  there  has 
been  not  a  little  w-aste  in  transporting  it  through  leaky  pipes. 

Other  minerals.  There  are  numerous  other  mineral  resources 
which  are  important  in  American  industrial  life  and  which  have 
left  a  mark  upon  the  industrial  history  of  the  country.  One  of 
the  most  useful  of  these  is  copper,  in  the  production  of  w^hich 
we  have  for  a  number  of  years  surpassed  other  nations.  Experts 
tell  us  that  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  our  copper  deposits  with 
much  accuracy  ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  other  of  our  mineral 
resources,  such  as  gold,  silver,  lead,  and  zinc.  With  respect  to 
all  these  minerals  we  are  important  producers,  and  our  output 
has  been  fast  increasing ;  at  the  same  time  we  have  developed, 
on  the  side  of  technical  process,  the  means  for  handling  with 
profit  lower  and  lower  grades  of  ore.  Our  resources  in  aluminum 
are  likely,  as  time  goes  on,  to  become  the  basis  of  an  impor- 
tant industry ;  they  are  really  illimitable,  for  the  entire  crust 
of  the  earth  contains,  on  the  average,  about  eight  per  cent  of 
aluminum.  Further,  this  country  is  well  supplied  with  building 
stone  and  other  structural  materials,  such  as  clays,  slate,  and 
cement ;  and  there  are  important  deposits  of  phosphates  and 
other  mineral  fertilizers,  which,  because  of  the  exhaustion  of  the 
soil  over  large  areas  of  the  country,  are  coming  increasingly 
into  demand. 


NATURAL  RESOURCES  27 

This  preliminary  survey  of  mineral  resources  will  serve  as  a 
background  for  our  treatment  of  the  mineral  industries,  presently 
to  come.  We  now  turn  to  the  natural  resources  in  living  things, 
with  which  our  country  is  endowed. 

Forests.  The  native  forests  were  not  the  product  of  man's 
labor  or  foresight.  There  are,  of  course,  young  forests  that  have 
been  planted  and  raised  by  human  effort,  just  as  there  are  rubber 
plantations  or  herds  of  horses  as  distinguished  from  "wild" 
rubber  trees  or  wild  horses  ;  but  all  of  the  forests  which  have 
been  used  in  the  United  States  hitherto  were  natural  forests  and 
so  belong  among  the  natural  resources.  Our  original  forests  sur- 
passed, both  in  extent  and  value,  those  of  any  other  civilized 
nation  ;  and  they  constituted  a  great  advantage  in  the  competition 
of  peoples.  No  other  element  in  man's  environment  has  been 
more  extensively  utilized  by  him,  or  has  entered  more  intimately 
into  his  life  economy,  than  the  tree.  Food,  clothing,  and  shelter 
have  all  been  derived  from  the  forest ;  so  have  materials  for  fuel 
and  lighting,  and  for  the  building  of  edifices  of  all  kinds,  of  ships, 
and  of  other  useful  structures.  This  may  be  the  iron  and  steel 
age,  but,  even  for  building,  wood  is  not  yet  dispensable. 

Forests  of  the  United  States.  The  original  forests  of  the 
United  States  have  been  classified  by  the  National  Forest  Service 
into  five  main  divisions,  which  comprise  a  vast  extent  of  wood- 
land overgrown  by  the  most  useful  staple  varieties  of  trees 
available   for   general   industrial   and   commercial   development. 

The  Northern  Forest  reached  across  the  northern  part  of  the 
country,  from  the  Atlantic  to,  and  including,  Minnesota,  and  com- 
prised New  England  (except  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island),  the 
larger  part  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  an  extension  from 
Pennsylvania  along  the  Appalachian  Ridge  to  northern  Georgia, 
and  more  than  half  of  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota. 
Originally,  it  is  estimated,  this  forest  covered  some  one  hundred 
and  fifty  million  acres,  and  was  composed  of  white  and  red  pine, 
spruce,  hemlock,  cedar,  balsam,  fir,  birch,  black  cherry,  and  other 
hard  woods. 


28  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

The  Southern  Forest  stretched  along  the  coast  from  southern 
New  Jersey,  south  and  west,  including  much  of  Delaware,  Mary- 
land, Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
Texas,  some  of  Arkansas,  Oklahoma,  and  Missouri,  and  all  of 
Florida  and  Louisiana.  Here  were,  originally,  about  two  hundred 
and  twenty  million  acres;  and  the  leading  wood  was  yellow  pine, 
although  there  were  great  quantities  of  cypress,  magnolia,  and  oak. 

The  Central  Forest  is  between  the  two  above-mentioned  areas 
and  shades  gradually  into  thjem.  It  was  once  a  great  hardwood 
growth,  covering  some  two  hundred  and  eighty  million  acres  and 
containing  walnut,  maple,  oak,  elm,  and  ash  in  abundance. 

The  Rocky  Mountain  Forest  covered,  originally,  about  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  million  acres.  Yellow  pine  was  the  leading  wood, 
though  other  soft  varieties  occurred  in  abundance. 

The  Pacific  Forest  embraced  the  timbered  areas  of  California, 
Oregon,  and  Washington.  Here,  originally,  about  ninety  million 
acres  were  covered  with  redwood,  yellow  pine,  Douglas  fir,  and 
other  similar  trees  ;  and  here  were,  and  still  are,  the  giant  trees 
of  which  we  see  pictures  in  the  magazines. 

Present  condition  of  our  forests.  This  is  a  description  of  our 
country's  forests  as  they  once  were,  rather  than  as  they  now  are. 
We  have  been  using  up  our  forests  faster  than  they  can  grow, 
so  that  there  are  still  standing  perhaps  less  than  two  thirds  of  the 
total  original  growth;  also  we  have  used  up  the  best  wood,  so  that 
probably  not  more  than  half  of  the  salable  timber  which  we  origi- 
nally had  still  remains.  But  we  have  somewhat  awakened  to  the 
folly  of  our  course  and  have  learned  from  the  Europeans,  whose 
original  forests  began  to  give  out  a  long  time  ago,  how  to  use 
more  economically  what  we  have  and  how  to  reforest  the  areas 
which  have  been  cut.  The  profession  of  forester  is  becoming 
quite  important  among  us,  whereas  years  ago  no  one  ever  heard 
of  such  a  vocation. 

Water  power.  Water  itself  is  a  necessity  to  life  —  it  is  really 
more  than  a  resource.  The  human  body  is  more  than  half  water, 
and  its  fluid  constituents  must  be  regularly  restored.    Without  it 


29 


30  INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 

there  could  bo  no  industrial  history,  because  there  would  be  no 
history  at  all.  Its  indispensability  in  agriculture  has  been  alluded 
to  under  the  topic  of  rainfall  (p.  lo).  But  all  this  is  self-evident 
if  one  stops  to  think  ;  in  this  place  we  shall  confine  our  attention 
to  the  importance  of  water  powder  as  a  natural  resource. 

Water  power  and  other  power.  For  ages  man  has  used  the 
force  of  falling  water ;  in  colonial  times  in  this  country  it  was  the 
great  source  of  power  in  industry,  and  settlements  were  located 
where  it  was  to  be  had  for  the  mills.  Numerous  manufacturing 
towns  arose  along  the  waterfalls  of  New  England  and  along 
the  "fall  line"  farther  south;  they  may  use  coal  and  steam 
nowadays,  but  their  original  industrial  momentum  came  from  the 
water  power.  The  steam  engine  has  rather  generally  replaced 
water  power  in  manufacture  ;  but  the  movement  toward  the  con- 
servation of  natural  resources  has  drawn  attention  back  to  the 
water-power  resource.  The  prospect  of  the  advancing  exhaustion 
of  the  coal  beds  and  the  rise  in  the  price  of  coal  has  set  people 
to  considering  the  plan  of  using  water  power  much  more  than 
they  do.  Water  power  is  now  coming  again  to  be  regarded  as 
a  very  valuable  natural  resource,  that  ought  to  be  preserved  and 
developed,  if  not  for  this  generation,  at  least  for  a  future  one. 

Water  power  of  the  United  States.  The  best  information  upon 
the  water-power  resources  of  the  country  is  that  compiled  for  the 
National  Conservation  Commission,  in  1908,  by  the  United  States 
Geological  Survey,  although  other  and  later  government  reports 
contain  much  information.  From  these  it  appears,  among  many 
other  important  matters,  that  the  potential  water-power  resources 
of  the  country  are  geographically  much  concentrated:  some  72  per 
cent  is  found  in  the  Mountain  and  Pacific  states  ;  and  nearly  one 
half  of  the  total  (42  per  cent)  is  located  in  the  states  of  California, 
Oregon,  and  Washington.  Therefore,  unless  this  power  can  some- 
how be  carried  or  transmitted  over  great  distances,  it  cannot  be 
rendered  widely  available.  It  has  often  been  assumed  that  we 
could,  in  time,  use  water  power  for  running  the  bulk  of  the  in- 
dustrial plants  throughout  the  countr)- ;   but  this  is  very  doubtful. 


NATURAL  RESOURCES  3 1 

Limits  to  the  use  of  water  power.  Five  great  groups  of  states 
—  the  New  England,  Middle  Atlantic,  East  North  Central,  West 
North  Central,  and  West  South  Central  —  are  already  using 
power  very  much  in  excess  of  what  they  could  ever,  at  best,"  get 
out  of  their  water-power  resources.  These  groups  included,  in 
191 2,  sixty-seven  million  inhabitants,  or  70  per  cent  of  the  total 
population  of  the  countr)^  Water  power,  however  developed,  can 
never  supersede  all  the  steam  and  other  power  now  in  use  and 
to  be  produced  —  not,  at  least,  under  any  conditions  now  known. 
Until  some  new  and  unforeseen  method  is  devised  for  extending 
greatly  the  distance  over  which  electric  power  may  economically 
be  transmitted,  so  that  the  enormous  power  resources  of  the  West- 
ern states  can  be  developed  and  carried  into  the  Mississippi  Valley 
and  to  the  Atlantic  coast,  the  greater  part  of  the  country  will 
have  to  rely,  for  the  larger  proportion  of  its  power,  on  sources 
other  than  falling  w-ater. 

Plant  and  animal  life.  The  nature  of  the  flora  (apart  from  the 
forests)  and  fauna  of  this  country  has  not  exercised  the  influence 
on  its  history  which  one  would  perhaps  at  first  sight  expect. 
The  type  of  wild  plant  and  animal  existing  in  a  region  is  most 
important  to  a  savage,  and  often  very  significant  for  the  colonist; 
but  when  a  nation  has  surrounded  itself  with  the  conditions  of 
civilization,  this  no  longer  matters  very  much.  Plants  and  animals 
can  be  transported  about  from  country  to  country,  so  that  it 
amounts  to  very  little  just  where  they  were  native  —  of  what 
country  they  were  natural  resources.  Also  both  plants  and  animals 
have  been  so  changed  by  the  activity  of  man,  in  breeding  and 
improving  them,  that  they  are  no  longer  genuine  natural  products, 
such  as,  for  example,  a  pine  or  a  spruce. 

Plant  and  animal  life  of  North  America.  However,  it  is  not 
right  to  dismiss  this  topic  without  any  consideration.  We  should 
at  least  recall  the  fact  that  the  earlier  settlers  became  acquainted 
with  Indian  corn  here  —  a  product  destined  to  play  a  great  part 
in  commercial  history,  whether  it  can  be  correctly  called  a  natural 
resource  or  not.     And  when   we   turn   to  the  animal    life   native 


32  IXDISTRV    AM)    IRADI'; 

to  this  country,  including'  the  lish  of  the  neigliboring  waters,  it 
is  scarcely  fair  to  say,  as  one  writer  does,  that  "the  animal  life 
indigenous  to  North  America  had  enormous  significance  to  the 
aborigines,  less  to  the  colonists,  and  has  scarcely  any  to  us  to-day." 
The  fur  trade  may  be  a  thing  of  the  past,  but  the  fisheries  are 
still  with  us,  as  a  later  chapter  will  show.  In  general,  however, 
the  flora  and  fauna  of  this  country  cannot  be  compared,  as  natural 
resources  of  a  lasting  type,  with  those  other  resources  which  have 
been  mentioned  above,  (^ur  important  plants  and  animals  are, 
in  the  form  we  know  them,  the  products  of  human  thought  and 
effort  rather  than  of  nature.  The  native  products  are  gone  or  are 
altered.  Their  importance  is  historical  rather  than  contemporar)', 
as  will  appear  in  the  following  chapters.^ 


CHAPTER   III 


THE  HUMAN  ELEMENT 


The  land-plus-man  unit.  The  basic  factors  of  American  in- 
dustrial development  with  which  we  started  are  the  land  and  the 
men  —  the  land,  with  its  various  natural  qualities,  and  the  men, 
with  their  various  inborn  or  acquired  characters  —  the  land, 
capable  or  incapable  of  affording  to  man  such  resources  as  he 
needs  for  living,  and  the  men,  capable  or  incapable  of  developing 
what  the  land  can  afford  them.  Always  the  unit  of  production 
is,  we  repeat,  land  plus  man. 

The  men.  But  now  we  have  made  a  broad  survey  of  the  land 
and  its  resources,  and  before  we  try  to  picture  our  national  indus- 
trial development  it  is  necessary  to  render  some  account  of  the 
human  element  of  the  problem.  We  now  know  what  sort  of  a 
land  the  men  had  to  deal  with  ;  and  it  is  time  to  consider  what 
sort  of  men  there  were  to  deal  with  the  land.  Our  next  topic  is, 
therefore,  the  character  of  our  country's  population. 

Human  races.  The  peoples  of  the  earth  differ  from  one  another 
in  several  respects:  color,  stature,  shape  of  head,  and  otherwise. 
On  the  basis  of  these  differences  they  have  been  classified  into 
different  races,  say  into  five  :  the  white,  yellow,  black,  brown, 
and  red.  Such  distinctions  do  not  concern  us  here,  for  when  it 
is  a  matter  of  industrial  development,  the  color  of  a  man's  skin 
does  not  count  if  he  possesses  the  industrial  virtues.  But  along 
with  these  external  differences  go  others  that  do  concern  us  in 
our  study.    Tt  is  clear,  for  example,  that  the  white  and  vcllow 


34  INDUSTRY   AM)    IRADE 

races  are  the  only  ones  which  have  developed,  in  their  own 
countries  and  without  outside  aid,  a  high  civilization  ;  and,  what 
is  more,  the)"  are  the  only  ones  which  have  shown  the  mental 
qualities  and  attainments  necessary  for  such  advance.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  race  character,  just  as  there  is  a  personal  char- 
acter ;  and  only  the  white  and  yellow  races  have  shown  them- 
selves to  be  in  possession  of  a  race  character  that  fitted  them  for 
the  advanced  industrial  development  upon  which  an  advanced 
civilization  must  rest.  In  comparison  with  the  white  and  yellow 
races  the  others  appear  to  be  backward  or  undeveloped. 

The  nonwhite  Americans.  There  are  two  of  these  backward 
races  which  have  entered  to  form  part  of  the  population  of  the 
United  States  proper  :  the  Indian  and  the  African.  The  rest  of 
our  population  is  almost  wholly  of  white  stock.  We  wish  briefly 
to  consider  the  Indian  and  the  negro,  first  of  all,  after  which  we 
can  devote  our  undivided  attention  to  the  main  section  —  the 
whites  —  in  our  population.  And  what  we  shall  have  to  say  about 
the  Indian  and  the  negro  will  help  us  to  see  more  clearly  what 
qualities  of  mind  and  character  are  essential  for  a  high  industrial 
development. 

The  Indians.  This  race  occupied,  in  pre-Columbian  times,  the 
whole  of  North  and  South  America,  with  the  exception  of  a 
narrow  strip  of  the  North  American  coast  which  bordered  almost 
wholly  on  the  Arctic  Ocean.  The  Indians  of  North  America  are, 
in  general,  so  much  alike  that  they  are  classified  only  on  the  basis 
of  language.  The  tribes  that  occupied  what  is  now  the  United 
States  were  hunters,  first  and  foremost ;  there  were  in  America 
few  animals  capable  of  domestication  —  in  any  case,  the  Indians 
had  not  domesticated  any  of  importance  —  and  so  they  could  not  rise 
to  the  cattle-raising  stage ;  and  while  they  planted  maize,  squashes, 
beans,  tobacco,  and  some  other  agricultural  products,  their  cultiva- 
tion was  on  a  small  scale.  Being  hunters,  they  had  the  regular 
character  of  hunters  :  they  were  brave,  warlike,  and  resourceful. 
They  were  not  as  lazy  as  some  writers  give  us  to  understand, 
but  they  lacked  the  qualities  necessary  for  the  development  of 


THE  HUMAN   ELEMENT 


35 


steady  industry  and  a  high  civihzation.  What  they  might  have 
attained  to  if  they  had  been  left  alone  we  cannot  say,  but  the 
fact  is  that  they  could  neither  withstand  nor  become  part  of  the 
w^hite  man's  civilization.  They  were  therefore  pushed  farther  and 
farther  west  as  the  w-hite  man  advanced,  and  presently  constituted 
an  unimportant  element  in  the  country's  population. 

Influence  of  the  Indians.  However,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  his- 
tor)^  of  our  country  would  not  have  been  just  what  it  was  if  the 
land  had  been  entirely 
empty  when  discov- 
ered ;  and  if  we  want 
to  get  some  idea  of 
the  beginnings  of  what 
we  now  are,  we  can- 
not ignore  the  Indian. 
For  as  the  white  man 
moved  into  the  coun- 
try he  had  to  meet  the 
fierce  resistance  of  the 
natives,  who  time  and 
again  succeeded  in  de- 
stroying what  he  had 
made.  Again,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  suc- 
cess of  the  newcomers  was  often  rendered  possible  by  their  adop- 
tion of  Indian  methods  —  methods  which  the  savages  had  tested 
out  through  long  ages  of  experience  and  had  found  best  fitted  to 
conditions. 

What  was  learned  from  the  Indians.  Thus  the  pioneers  adopted 
the  Indian  dress,  and  learned  much  from  him  as  to  the  location 
and  use  of  the  land's  resources.  Friendly  natives  saved  the  settle- 
ments in  a  number  of  cases  by  giving  food  or  showing  the  set- 
tlers how  to  get  it.  The  pioneers  adopted  Indian  foods,  and  with 
them  their  names,  such  as  mush,  succotash.  And  if  the  Indian 
had  not  already  developed  the  production  of  maize  and  tobacco. 


AN    INDIAN    CHILDS    DINNER 


36  IXDUSTRV  AM)    i  RADK 

certainly  two  very  important  items  in  our  earlier  and  later  com- 
merce would  not  have  been  present.  The  Indian  impress  is  left 
upon  our  history,  and  no  account  of  American  industry  is  complete 
unless  something  is  said  about  the  aborigines. 

The  Africans.  The  second  of  the  undeveloped  races  which  are 
included  in  our  population  has  had  a  strong  influence  upon  our 
national  development  ever  since  it  has  been  here,  and  will  be  a 
great  factor  in  our  destiny  for  an  indefinite  time  to  come.  The 
Indian  has  ceased  to  be  much  of  a  problem  for  us ;  he  has 
perished,  or  been  shut  up  in  reservations,  or  has  come  to  be  a 
part  of  the  population  little  distinguished  from  the  rest ;  but  the 
negro  is  always  with  us.  The  negro  is  one  of  the  most  signifi- 
cant of  all  American  problems,  and  no  young  man  or  woman 
interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  native  land  should  fail  to  realize  it. 
The  problem  is  a  broad  social  one,  but  its  industrial  side,  which 
is  all  we  can  undertake  to  speak  of  here,  is  a  ver)'  important 
part  of  it. 

Slavery.  It  was  with  the  idea  of  furthering  our  industries  and 
developing  our  resources  that  the  negro  was  brought  here  from 
Africa.  We  have  said  that  the  effective  unit  is  not  land,  nor  yet 
man,  but  a  compound  of  land  plus  man.  The  man  is  the  power 
that  makes  the  land  amount  to  something.  Now  there  was  land 
enough  in  the  South  as  well  as  in  the  North  ;  it  was  the  man- 
element  that  made  the  difference.  Let  us  go  somewhat  into  the 
reasons  for  this  difference  in  the  man-element. 

Climate  and  settlement.  In  a  previous  connection  we  have  seen 
that  climate  is  a  factor  of  great  importance  to  the  life  of  man. 
For  the  white  man  the  warmer  climate  is  sometimes  dangerous. 
He  may  be  able  to  live  in  the  tropics  and  subtropics,  but  he 
cannot  work  well.  When  he  moves  from  region  to  region  he 
tends  to  cling  to  the  sort  of  climate  to  which  he  has  been  used/ 
immigrants  to  this  country,  for  example,  are  not  likely  to  settle 
much  farther  south  than  the  countries  from  which  they  come  — - 
that  is,  since  they  come  from  Europe,  for  the  most  part,  they 
are  unlikely  to  settle  much  farther  south  than,  say.  New  Jersey 


THE  HUMAN  ELEMENT 


37 


or  Pennsylvania,  which  are  on  about  the  same  parallel  of  latitude 
as  Italy  and  Greece.  If  one  examines  the  census  map  which 
shows  the  center  of  population  of  the  United  States  as  it  has 
shifted  westward  decade  by  decade,  he  will  be  surprised  to  see 
how  far  north  that  center  is  and  how  little  it  has  moved  north 
or  south.  The  line  of  its  movement  shows  roughly  the  course  of 
the  stream  of  immigration.  The  conclusion  is  that  the  white  man 
naturally  sticks  to  the  cooler  latitudes. 

The  need  of  labor  in  the  South.  Thus  the  white  race  lias,  as 
it  were,  avoided  the  South  of  this  country,  even  though  it  is  not 
really  tropical.    But  this  means  that  the  land  in  the  South  was 


.MOVEMENT   WESTWARD   OF  THE   CENTER   OF   POPULATION   SINCE    1790 
The  centers  of  population  are  shown  by  stars 

left,  SO  far  as  the  whites  are  concerned,  without  men  to  develop 
it.  However,  there  have  always  been  rich  natural  resources  in 
the  South,  and  there  are  crops  of  great  commercial  imjjortance 
which  cannot  be  raised  in  the  North,  as,  for  example,  cotton 
and  sugar.  To  meet  the  demand  for  these,  it  was  necessary  to 
get  power  to  apply  to  the  land,  and  the  only  power  there  was, 
before  the  invention  of  highly  developed  machinery,  was  men. 
i^ut  the  warm  regions  are  not  uninhabited  ;  there  are  men  there 
who  do  not  mind  the  heat  of  the  tropics,  for  they  have  been  born 
and  raised  in  it ;  they  are,  as  we  describe  it,  acclimatized.  The 
Indians  were  thus  acclimatized,  and  the  Spaniards  tried  very 
hard  to  use  them  by  enslaving  them  ;  but  the  Indian  never  was 
a  good  slave,  being  too  wild  and   fond  of  liberty.    The    Indians 


3« 


INDL'STRV  AND  TRADE 


would  even  commit  suicide  rather  than  do  slave  labor.  And  so 
the  white  man  turned  to  another  tropical  race,  the  African,  to 
get  his  labor  supply. 

The  slave  trade.  The  Spanish,  Portuguese,  and  Dutch,  and 
other  peoples  in  lesser  measure,  early  began  to  bring  negroes  to 
America,  to  the  mines  and  plantations,  as  the  best  labor  force 
suited  to  the  climate  ;  and  our  country  became  one  of  the  termi- 
nals of  this  slave  traffic.    The  story  of  the  importation  of  slaves 


MAKING   HARNESS   AT  TUSKEGEE   INSTITUTE 


into  Virginia  and  the  South  is  in  all  the  United  States  histories ; 
it  began  almost  exactly  three  hundred  years  ago,  and  lasted 
about  two  hundred  years.  The  negroes  thrived  and  increased  in 
this  country,  and  now,  out  of  a  population  of  over  one  hundred 
million,  about  one  tenth  are  persons  with  African  blood. 

Position  of  the  negro  in  the  United  States.  If  we  can  sup- 
pose that  there  had  not  been  any  slaves  at  all  brought  into  this 
country,  we  can  imagine  how  different  the  industrial  and  social 
development  of  the  nation  might  have  been.    They  were  used 


THE  HUMAN  ELEMENT  39 

to  agriculture,  and  so  fitted  into  our  system  ;  but  they  contrib- 
uted little  except  the  labor  of  their  hands.  From  the  state  of 
slavery  they  were  suddenly  elevated,  as  a  result  of  the  antislav- 
ery  agitation  and  the  Civil  War ;  they  were  granted  citizenship 
and  the  vote. 

Negro  education.  There  have  been  many  projects  of  negro 
education  within  the  last  fifty  years.  The  most  sensible  of  these 
have  aimed  to  teach  the  negro  better  ways  of  living  and  the 
simpler  trades.  The  hope  has  been  that  when  he  has  learned  to 
live  more  wholesomely  and  to  be  industrious  and  more  fully  self- 
supporting,  he  will  be  better  able  to  advance  to  still  higher  stages 
of  usefulness  and  education.  The  negro  is  at  present  an  impor- 
tant factor  in  the  industry  of  the  South  and  is  needed  there  ;  but 
he  has  never  been  an  outstanding  and  independent  figure  in  the 
development  of  American  industries  and  trade.  Whether  he  will 
become  so  in  the  future  depends  upon  the  opportunities  accorded 
him,  and  his  utilization  of  these  opportunities. 

The  white  immigrants.  Except  for  the  Indians,  we  are  all 
immigrants  to  this  country ;  but  some  of  us  are  native-born  and 
some  are  not.  The  ancestors  of  some  of  us  have  been  native- 
born  for  a  long  way  back ;  those  of  others  of  us  were  foreign-born 
not  many  generations  ago.  Let  us  try  to  get  some  idea  of  the 
stream  of  white  immigration  as  it  has  flowed,  mainly  from 
Europe,  into  this  countr)'. 

The  first  settlers.  The  first  settlers  in  this  country  were  pre- 
dominantly from  the  most  highly  civilized  states  of  western 
Europe :)  England,  Scotland,  France,  Holland,  and  Germany. 
This  was  an  excellent  beginning,  especially  since  the  conditions 
of  the  time  were  such  that  the  immigrants  represented  the  best 
stock  of  these  advanced  countries.  For  the  motives  to  migration 
were  ambition  to  improve  material  conditions  of  life  ;  independ- 
ence of  judgment  and  unwillingness  to  submit  to  intellectual  or 
religious  oppression  ;  and  other  motives  that  spoke  well  for  the 
quality  of  the  men  and  women  in  question.  Not  all  the  immi- 
grants were  of  this  type,  naturally  enough  ;  there  were  ruffians 


40 


INinSTRV  AND  TRADE 


and  scoundrels  ;  and  there  was  a  whole  class  of  paupers  or  kid- 
naped parties  who  sold  themselves  into  temporary  slavery  in 
order  to  pay  for  their  passage.  But  in  the  main  the  early  immi- 
gration drew  from  the  best  existing  sources,  and  the  quality  of 
the  population  was  high.  Circumstances,  as  we  shall  see  in  the 
next  chapter,  conspired  to  give  this  population  some  very  de- 
sirable qualities  ;  but  circumstances  could  have  done  little  with- 
out the  original  good  material  to  work  on.  The  immigrants  were, 
for  the  most  part,  serious,  thrifty,  industrious  people,  intelligent, 


EARLY   SETTLERS   GOING   TO   CHURCH 


well  educated  according  to  the  standards  of  the  time,  quite  strict 
in  their  moral  codes,  and,  what  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in 
such  cases,  remarkably  adaptable  to  the  new  conditions  in  which 
they  found  themselves.  The  resourcefulness  of  the  "Yankee" 
began  with  the  first  settlers.  In  brief,  they  represented  excellent 
human  material  to  be  applied  to  the  development  of  the  new  land. 
Mid-century  immigration.  The  stream  of  immigration  which 
was  to  form  the  population  of  our  countr)^  continued  to  be  of  this 
general  type  up  to  the  Revolution  and  after.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  the  growth  of  population  was  due  chiefly  to  natural  in- 
crease, for  up  to  1820  the  stream  of  immigration  was  a  rather 


THE  HUMAN  ELEMENT  41 

thin  one.  But  because  of  the  building  and  completion  of  the  Erie 
Canal,  the  planning  of  the  first  railroads,  and  other  enterprises, 
there  was  created  a  demand  for  labor  which  the  native  population 
could  not  supply,  and  the  arrivals  rapidly  increased.  Small  parties 
of  Scandinavians  began  to  arrive;  around  1850  many  Germans 
fled  hither  from  political  discomfort  and  oppression  at  home ;  and 
the  potato  famine  in  Ireland,  in  1845,  drove  many  Irish  settlers 
to  our  shores.  The  Germans  as  a  rule  went  West  and  took  up 
farm  lands  ;  while  the  Irish  generally  lingered  in  the  Eastern 
towns  or  drifted  into  construction  camps. 

Later  immigration.  Up  to  1882  the  incomers  to  this  country 
were  from  western  Europe,  They  were  often  poor  and  some- 
times turbulent,  but  they  managed  to  get  along  together  and  to 
unite  in  forming  what  was  essentially  a  single  type  —  the  Amer- 
ican. They  were  not  too  far  apart  in  their  national  ways  and 
civilization  to  be  able  to  understand  one  another.  Those  who  came 
in  poverty  often  rose,  in  a  few  generations,  to  prominence  in  the 
community.  There  is  no  manner  of  doubt  as  to  the  value  of  the 
mid-century  immigrants  for  the  development  of  industry. 

Immigration  since  1882.  But  in  1882  another  stream  of  immi- 
gration began  to  make  itself  felt  —  one  originating  in  southern  and 
eastern  Europe,  chiefly,  at  first,  from  Italy,  Austria-Hungary,  and 
Russia.  In  the  year  mentioned  came  the  first  inclusive  Eederal 
immigration  law,  and  also  the  first  Chinese  exclusion  act.  Aston- 
ishingly large  numbers  began  to  arrive,  the  maximum  occurring 
in  1907,  in  which  year  we  received  1,285,349  foreigners  within 
our  boundaries.  People  began  to  wonder  whether  we  could  turn 
all  this  mass  of  foreigners  into  Americans,  however  effective  our 
"melting  pot."  In  1896,  for  the  first  time,  the  incomers  from 
Austria-Hungary,  Italy,  and  Russia  outnumbered  those  from  the 
United  Kingdom,  Germany,  and  Scandinavia. 

Character  of  recent  immigrants.  We  shall  try  to  sum  up  some 
of  the  main  facts  about  the  nature  of  our  later  immigration.  The 
incomers  are  predominantly  male  and  of  middle  age  or  younger, 
and  physically  they  are  selected  specimens,  for  they  have  had  lo 


42  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

pass  physical  tests  in  order  to  be  allowed  to  enter  the  country. 
If  it  were  merely  a  question  of  having  a  number  of  able-bodied 
males  to  do  rough  work,  these  facts  would  be  favorable.  But  if  it 
is  desirable  for  immigrants  to  settle  down  and  found  homes,  then 
the  lack  of  female  immigration  is  unfortunate.  This  immigration 
of  recent  decades  is  evidently  not  one  of  families,  as  it  was  in  the 
earlier  days.  Still  more  unfavorable  is  it  that  the  new  immigration 
shows  a  large  percentage  of  illiteracy,  and  that  the  great  majority 
of  the  immigrants  can,  for  a  while  at  least,  do  nothing  better  than 
common,  unskilled  labor.  The  possible  Samuel  Slaters,  Goodyears, 
or  Edisons  among  them  have  not  been  revealed. 

Can  all  the  immigrants  be  made  into  Americans?  It  is  per- 
fectly plain  that  the  newer  immigration  is  not  of  as  high  a  type 
industrially  as  was  the  old.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the 
new  immigrants  do  not  come  to  us  well  adapted  to  fit  immedi- 
ately into  our  life.  This  is  due  to  the  fact,  undoubtedly,  that  they 
have  lived  in  Europe  under  conditions  so  different  from  ours  that 
their  habits  and  ideas  are  very  different  from  our  own.  To  a  large 
degree  this  can  be  remedied  by  education,  and  has  been  repeatedly 
so  remedied  in  the  case  of  the  young ;  but  it  is  always  hard  to 
learn  new  ways,  especially  for  older  people,  and  if  the  immigrants 
are  going  to  come  in  such  masses,  it  is  a  question  whether  we 
shall  educate  them  in  time  to  prevent  them  from  altering  our 
system  in  the  direction  of  their  own.  The  question  is  as  to  the 
capacity  of  the  '"  melting  pot."  One  thing  is  certain  :  we  cannot 
take  them  as  they  come  to  us ;  something  has  to  be  done  with 
them  if  they  are  going  to  become  Americans  and  enter  into  our 
social  and  industrial  system  as  part  of  it  and  as  factors  to  develop 
and  improve  it.  The  older  immigration  came  along,  settled  down, 
and  practically  took  care  of  itself  ;  it  melted  naturally  into  the  type 
which  we  call  American,  and  presently  began  to  contribute  to  the 
advancement  of  our  national  industrial  prosperity.  All  these  new'er 
immigrant  races  have  their  good  points  ;  and  if  they  do  not  come 
in  such  numbers  as  to  swamp  us,  by  unremitting  effort  we  can 
mold  them  toward  our  type. 


THE   HUMAN   ELEMENT  43 

Importance  of  the  immigration  question.  Ihese  questions  about 
tlie  human  element  in  our  national  development  are  matters  which 
ought  to  be  realized  and,  as  far  as  possible,  understood  by  every 
)oung  American.  We  have  all  got  to  work  together  if  we  are 
going  to  succeed  ;  and  to  work  together  we  must  be  and  must 
think  pretty  much  alike.  Our  national  resources,  of  which  we 
have  seen  something  in  the  preceding  chapter,  cannot  be  devel- 
oped with  success  unless  the  quality  of  the  men  corresponds  with 
the  quality  of  the  materials.  The  land  element  in  production  is 
favorable  to  prosperity  of  the  highest  t)'pe  ;  we  have  plenty  of 
men  and  shall  be  able  to  get  all  we  need  ;  the  great  question 
now  is  as  to  the  quality  of  our  population,  and  whether  it  will 
come  to  work  together  as  a  unit  in  the  development  of  national 
wealth  out  of  abundant  natural  resources.  W'e  are  a  medley  of 
races,  —  the  "mixing  ground  of  the  nations,"  —  but  the  medley 
should  always  be  melting  into  a  single  race  and  nation,  as  it 
did  in  the  older  times. 


CHAPTER   I\' 

SOCIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

The  American  type.  In  the  preceding  pages  we  have  spoken 
of  an  "  American  type  "  as  if  it  were  a  definite,  permanent  thing. 
There  is  no  permanent  national  type;  the  character  of  no  nation 
or  people  is  changeless.  Every  living  being,  and  every  people, 
must  adapt  itself  to  conditions  of  life  if  it  is  to  live ;  and  life 
conditions  do  not  remain  the  same  age  after  age.  Even  climate 
changes  somewhat,  and  many  of  the  conditions  of  environment, 
such  as  the  presence  of  forests  or  wild  animals,  have  been  altered 
greatly  by  man  himself.  No  doubt  if  Washington  or  Franklin 
could  return  to  earth,  he  would  find  the  type  of  American  of  the 
twentieth  century  very  different  from  that  of  the  eighteenth. 

How  was  it  formed  ?  However,  there  are  elements  in  the  en- 
vironment, and  in  race  character,  which  do  not  change  very  rapidly 
or  much  ;  if  the  same  race  continues  to  live  in  much  the  same 
environment,  it  is  likely  to  retain  most  of  its  characteristics. 
There  are  also  cases  where  different  races  come  to  occupy,  one 
after  another,  the  same  environment,  with  the  result  of  becoming 
similar ;  and  at  least  one  case,  that  of  the  Jews,  where  the  same 
race  has  retained  its  characteristics,  although  it  has  scattered  widely 
over  most  earthly  environments.  Also  it  is  true  of  races,  as  of 
persons,  that  "as  the  sapling  is  bent,  so  is  the  tree  inclined"; 
it  is  of  great  importance  to  a  person  how  his  childhood  was  passed, 
and  to  a  nation  how  it  began.  For  the  experience  of  earlier  stages 
of  development  is  likely  to  leave  an  impress  which  only  a  long 

44 


SOCIAL  DEVELOPMENT  45 

time  and  great  difference  of  life  conditions  can  remove.  We  wish, 
in  this  place,  to  indicate  some  of  the  important  factors  which  have 
contributed  to  form  what  we  call  the  American  type  —  the  one 
to  which  we  hope  that  our  immigrants  will  approach  as  they  live 
on  among  us.  As  we  are  writing  about  industry  chiefly,  we  shall 
give  most  attention  to  the  industrial  side  of  the  American  type, 
although  there  are  many  elements  of  a  social  and  political  nature 
that  must  be  mentioned,  since  they  deeply  affect  industrial  life. 

Frontier  society.  The  early  settlers  came,  as  civilized  men, 
into  an  undeveloped  region  of  the  temperate  zone.  They  founded 
a  temperate  frontier  society.  This  is  a  very  significant  fact,  for 
it  draws  in  its  train  many  marked  social  consequences.  Here  is  a 
place  where  climate  has  exerted  a  great  influence  over  the  life  of 
man.  F'or  if  two  frontier  societies,  composed  of  the  same  national 
stock,  one  of  which  lies  in  the  tropics  and  the  other  in  the  tem- 
perate zone,  be  set  over  against  one  another  for  comparison,  a 
contrast  due  almost  wholly  to  difference  of  climate  is  immediately 
evident.  It  is  perhaps  well  to  touch  upon  Vhat  contrast,  first  of 
all,  for  it  will  assist  us  to  understand  the  differences  between  the 
South  and  the  North  of  our  country;  for  while  our  South  is  not 
tropical  in  the  strict  sense,  yet  it  extends  to  the  borders  of  that 
belt  and  comes  somewhat  under  its  influences.  But  we  shall  brine: 
out  this  contrast  by  first  describing  briefly,  and  principally  for  the 
light  it  sheds  upon  the  temperate  frontier  society,  the  outstanding 
characteristics  of  the  frontier  society  or  colony  of  the  tropics. 

The  tropical  type  of  frontier  society.  The  effect  of  the  tropical 
climate  upon  the  white  man  is  enervating,  where  it  is  not  worse 
(p.  9).  It  is  harder  upon  women,  and  especially  upon  children, 
than  upon  men  ;  and  so  the  tropics  are  but  thinly  populated  by 
the  white  race,  and  most  of  the  whites  are  males.  This  means 
that  the  white  race  cannot  keep  up  its  numbers  in  these  regions. 
If  the  men  who  stay  there  for  years  marry,  they  are  likely  to 
take  native  wives  and  produce  a  race  of  half-breeds.  The  per- 
manent element  in  the  population  is  the  acclimated  native  ;  or, 
in  the  case  of  the  tropical   regions  of  America,  the  American 


46  IM)rsiR\    AM)    IKADK 

native  plus  another  tropical  native  —  the  negro  —  who  has  been 
brought  in  to  do  the  labor  which  the  white  man  cannot  perform. 
This  makes  a  set  of  differences  in  the  population,  which  divides 
into  classes,  with  the  aristocrats  at  the  top  and  the  sla\es  at  the 
bottom  ;  the  population  is  not  of  tiie  same  kind,  or  homogeneous, 
throughout. 

Economic  dependence.  If  the  tropics  had  had  no  natural  re- 
sources, or  if  these  had  been  the  same  as  tho.se  of  the  temperate 
zone,  the  white  man  would  not  have  been  interested  in  them.  But 
in  the  warmer  regions  there  can  be  produced  certain  things  which 
are  in  great  demand  in  northern  latitudes,  —  cotton,  sugar,  spices, 
rubber.  —  and  precious  metals  were  to  be  gotten  there.  Cotton  and 
sugar,  however,  cannot  very  well  be  raised  on  the  small  scale  ;  and 
the  demand  was  such  that  the  tropical  colony  generally  confined 
itself  to  raising  one  staple  crop.  If  that  crop  succeeded,  there 
was  wealth  ;  if  it  failed,  destitution  and  dependence  upon  out- 
side help.  All  the  eggs,  so  to  speak,  were  in  one  basket.  And 
the  methods  of  production  were  wasteful,  for  the  white  man.  or 
his  chartered  company,  was  after  immediate  profits.  The  settler 
did  not  expect  to  stay  k)ng,  and  if  he  could  make  his  pile,  cared 
little  for  what  he  might  leave  behind  him.  He  cared  nothing  for 
the  country  ;  it  was  not  to  be  his  home.  A  one-crop  country 
must  necessarily  be  a  dependent  one  economically. 

Political  dependence.  And  it  was  likewise  politically  dependent. 
The  natives  and  half-breeds  were  the  permanent  element  in  the 
population  and  far  outnumbered  the  whites  ;  and  they  were  gen- 
erally so  treated  by  their  masters  that  they  hated  them  cordially. 
The  few  white  aristocrats  and  owners  at  the  top  of  the  social 
scale  had  to  depend  all  the  time  upon  the  support  of  the  mother- 
country,  and  had  no  desire  or  impulse  to  break  aw^ay  and  form  an 
independent  state.  So  the  tropical  colonies  have,  as  a  whole,  re- 
mained politically  dependent  upon  some  northern  power  and  have 
not  grown  into  modern  independent  states.  They  have  remained 
in  a  protected  relation,  as  "protectorates"  or  crown  colonies,  ad- 
ministered by  a  governor  sent  out  from  the  mother-country  ;  and 


SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  47 

even  in  those  cases  where  thc\-  are  nominally  independent  they 
are  not  stable  states  like  the  United  States  and  Canada. 

The  temperate  frontier  society.  In  striking  contrast  with  such 
conditions  are  those  tvpical  of  a  colony  founded  in  the  temperate 
zone.  Of  all  such  societies  which  have  at  length  become  great 
nations,  no  other  has  attained  such  prominence  as  has  the  United 
States ;  it  is  the  most  outstanding  example  of  the  developed 
frontier  society  of  its  type.  Consequently,  as  we  pass  now  to  the 
frontier  society  of  the  temperate  zone  what  we  shall  have  to  say 
will  be  almost  wholly  with  reference  to  our  own  country  —  the 
foregoing  sketch  of  the  conditions  of  a  tropical  colony  having 
been  introduced  chiefly  with  the  idea  of  causing  the  contrasting 
conditions  of  our  own  country,  in  its  earlier  stages,  to  stand  out 
more  clearlv.  Particularlv  to  be  noted  is  the  influence  of  these 
conditions  in  forming  and  molding  the  "American  type  "  to  which 
we  ha\-e  several  times  referred. 

Population.  If  the  white  man  moves  from  Europe  to  a  new 
country  of  approximately  the  same  temperate  climate  as  that  to 
which  he  is  accustomed,  the  change  is  regularly  beneficial  to  him 
in  a  physical  way.  It  stimulates  him  ;  there  is  no  enervation  like 
that  of  the  hot  lands.  There  is  nothing  in  the  change,  either,  that 
is  deadly  to  the  women  and  children  ;  in  fact,  the  rate  of  increase 
of  a  P^uropean  population  regularly  rises  when  it  has  moved  to 
the  new  land.  And  although  the  hardships  of  the  frontier  put 
something  of  a  curb  (m  the  migration  of  women  and  children,  and 
although  there  is  always  a  preponderance  of  males  in  such  regions, 
still  colonization  in  the  temperate  zone  is  largely  by  families  rather 
than  bv  male  individuals.  It  is  the  more  so  because  the  mtention 
of  the  immigrants  is  permanent  settlement  rather  than  transitory 
fortune-making.  The  result  of  this  is  that  the  whites  breed  within 
their  own  race  and  that  there  are  fewc-r  half-breeds  by  far  than  in 
the  tropics.  And  this  means  that  the  ))opulation  is  more  of  a  single 
type  —  more  homogeneous.  It  is  physically  sturdy,  rapid  of  in- 
crease, and  largely  unmixed.  It  pushes  the  natives  aside  without 
intermarrying  much  with  them,  and  holds  the  land  by  and  for  itself. 


48  INDL'STRV   AND    IRADK 

Labor.  In  this  climate,  also,  the  white  man  was  able  to  work 
as  he  could  not  in  the  tropics ;  far  from  injuring  him,  work  was 
a  good  thing  for  him.  Nature  did  not  drop  gifts  into  his  lap,  — 
to  live  he  had  to  bestir  himself,  —  but  she  rewarded  effort  with 
generosity.  There  was  no  need  of  an  acclimatized  labor  force  ; 
and  although  negro  slavery  was  tried  out  in  the  North,  it  was 
found  that  slave  labor  could  not  compete  with  free  labor,  and  the 
experiment  was  not  carried  far.  Meanwhile  the  free  labor  poured 
in  with  the  stream  of  immigration  and  settlement. 

Resourcefulness.  This  free  population,  however,  was  obliged 
to  become  adaptable  and  resourceful,  for  there  was  not  much  aid 
from  without.  There  was  little  in  this  country  that  represented 
a  desired  novelty  in  Europe  —  no  one  of  those  tropical  products, 
such  as  spices,  sugar,  coffee,  for  which  a  large  demand  existed. 
The  Spaniards,  who  were  after  such  products,  and  also  precious 
metals,  paid  hardly  any  attention  to  America  north  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  The  fur  and  tobacco  trades,  involving  concentration 
on  single  products,  were  nearest  like  the  enterprises  which  were 
characteristic  of  the  warmer  lands.  In  general,  where  the  tropical 
colonies  have  set  their  fortune  on  raising  a  few  luxuries  on  the 
large  plantation  scale,  remaining  almost  dependent  upon  the 
mother-country  for  necessities,  the  temperate  colonies  have  been 
destined  to  raise  a  variety  of  necessities,  on  the  small  scale,  and 
so  have,  by  providing  for  their  own  needs,  become  independent  of 
outside  aid.  The  eggs  were  in  several  baskets.  Our  forefathers 
produced  few  things  that  were  not  produced  in  England,  and,  on 
the  whole,  received  little  help  in  working  out  their  fate.  But  this 
meant  that  they  had  to  be  alert  and  adaptable  to  conditions  if 
they  were  going  to  get  on  ;  they  had  to  be  full  of  resource  and 
do  things  for  themselves  somehow.  The  boy  who  is  helped  over 
every  difficulty  by  his  father  develops  little  energy  and  resource- 
fulness ;  but  when  a  boy  is  thrown  on  his  own  powers,  he  often 
shows  astonishing  ability  to  take  care  of  himself. 

The  Yankee.  So  it  was  with  the  colonists  ;  the  "  Yankee  "  got 
so  he  could  turn  his  hand  to  anything,  and  his  inventiveness  and 


SOCIAL  DEVELOPMENT  49 

resourcefulness  in  meeting  the  many  dangers  and  needs  of  exist- 
ence in  a  rough  environment  have  made  him  a  proverb.  The 
stamp  set  upon  him  has  come  to  be  a  sort  of  national  tradition. 
Our  history  has  been  full  of  alert  and  clever  action,  in  good 
causes  and  in  questionable  ones  ;  and  in  respect  to  mechanical 
invention  applicable  to  industrial  development  we  are  equal  or 
superior  to  other  nations.  It  belongs  to  the  American  type  to 
show  such  qualities  ;  and  they  were  first  developed  by  the  colo- 
nists, especially  those  of  the  northern  section  of  the  Thirteen 
Colonies,  in  their  effort  to  cope  with  their  life  conditions. 

Democracy.  But  now  there  was  another  set  of  elements  that 
entered  to  mold  the  national  type.  Our  countr)'  was  the  first  of  a 
number  of  powerful  modern  democracies.  But  democracy  does 
not  simply  happen.  Let  us  see  what  there  was  in  the  beginnings 
of  our  history  that  made  for  equality,  freedom,  and  independence. 

Equality  among  the  settlers.  There  was  no  great  fortune,  to 
be  made  by  settling  in  temperate  North  America ;  it  attracted  no 
Pizarro.  It  was  no  place  for  men  with  great  wealth,  for  there  was 
no  big  enterprise,  except  the  fur  trade,  to  invest  it  in.  And  it  was 
also  no  place  for  lazy  paupers  or  plundering  ruffians.  W'e  have 
seen  that  the  earliest  settlers  came  here  because  they  wanted  to  live 
and  believe  as  they  wished  —  in  respect  to  politics  and  religion,  for 
example.  In  other  words,  the  early  immigration  to  this  country 
was  that  of  people  on  about  the  same  level  of  wealth  and  social 
standing  —  pretty  much  alike,  and  each  thinking  himself  about 
as  good  as  the  next  man.  There  were  exceptions  ;  but  the  stream 
of  immigration  was,  as  a  stream,  composed  of  similar  elements. 

Equality  due  to  conditions  of  life.  And  when  the  settlers  got 
here,  the  conditi(Mis  tlicy  met  with  helped  along  the  feeling  of 
similarity  and  equality,  and  speedily  leveled  any  pretensions  of 
superiority  resting  on  birth  and  social  condition.  There  was 
no  need  for  any  man  to  remain  inferior  to  any  other  man  ;  and 
so  it  was  impossible  for  any  man  to  maintain  superiority  over 
others,  unless  such  dominance  rested  upon  real  qualities  that  were 
daily  tested  out,  before  all  men,  in  the  life  of  the  community.  The 


50  INDLSTRV  AM)    IKADK 

landlord  could  have  no  such  position  as  he  had  in  England,  where 
there  were  n^ore  men  and  less  land  ;  if  a  man  did  not  want  to  pay 
rent  for  land,  he  could  move  on  into  the  country,  clear  some  land, 
and  be  his  own  landlord  ;  if  he  was  not  paid  wages  that  made  him 
virtual! V  his  employer's  equal,  he  could  become  his  own  master 
easily  enough.  The  easy  reversibility  of  the  positions  of  employer 
and  emplo\-ed  is  illustrated  by  the  story  of  the  employer  who  hired 
a  man  and  paid  him  in  corn  and  sheep.  Presently  lie  told  his 
employee  that  he  could  hire  him  no  longer,  as  he  had  already 
paid  him  nearly  all  the  propert)-  he  had.  "  Very  well,"  replied 
the  workman,  "you  can  now  work  for  me  and  earn  it  all  back." 
Independence.  Now  this  sort  of  a  situation  made  people  very 
independent  and  gave  them  a  feeling  of  the  equality  of  men.  It 
is  still  to  be  seen  in  less  developed  parts  of  the  country  and 
among  populations  that  have  remained  more  true  to  the  colonial 
type,  where  servants  are  "  help,"  and  you  do  not  get  things  done 
for  you  very  readily,  although  the  people  are  not  wealthy  and  are 
eager  to  earn,  unless  )'ou  put  it  on  the  grounds  of  asking  a  favor. 
Furthermore,  there  was  an  even  wider  feeling  of  independence 
that  came  from  the  self-sufficiency  of  the  communities.  Pro- 
ducing, as  they  did,  a  variety  of  necessities  rather  than  a  single 
article  of  export,  such  as  sugar,  these  communities  were  not  eco- 
nomically dependent ;  they  could  live  on  their  own  supplies  with- 
out support  from  outside.  Nor  did  they  need  constant  protection 
from  the  mother-countr}-  against  the  natives  or  the  slaves,  as 
colonies  in  the  tropics  are  likely  to  need  it,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  native  and  slave  element  is  always  preponderant  in  numbers. 
And  this  independence  in  the  economic  and  social  fields  had  the 
inevitable  effect  of  making  the  population  feel  politically  self- 
sufficient.  Political  freedom  and  individualism  characterized  the 
temperate  colonies  ;  and  all  of  them  have  gradually  worked  them- 
selves out  into  political  independence.  They  have  all  become 
independent  states ;  and  the  strongest  of  them  is  the  United 
States,  which  led  off  in  declaring  its  independence  of  outside  con- 
trol.   And  no  one  should  be  deceived  into  believing  that  Canada. 


SOCIAL   DEVELOPMENT  51 

Australia,  and  other  temperate  sections  of  the  British  Empire  are 
the  less  independent  in  reality  because  they  still  acknowledge  a 
nominal  bond  with  Great  Britain. 

Prosperity.  Something  of  the  eftect  of  frontier  conditions  in 
a  favorable  region  upon  determining  the  type  of  population  can 
be  seen  from  preceding  paragraphs  ;  our  beginnings  in  this  coun- 
try certainly  had  a  strongly  molding  effect  upon  American  society. 
The  founders  of  our  nation  were  a  fine  racial  stock,  to  begin  with ; 
then  they  were  set  down  amidst  conditions  which  conspired  to 
make  and  keep  them  adaptable,  resourceful,  ambitious,  self-reliant, 
and  independent.  They  prized  industry  and  talent ;  and  they 
especially  prized  education.  A  man  with  an  alert  and  well-stocked 
mind  had  a  chance  in  this  country  that  he  could  not  well  complain 
of ;  a  far  better  one  than  could  be  gained  by  accident  of  birth. 
What  wonder,  then,  that  Americans  have  developed  an  unparalleled 
national  prosperity,  beginning  with  such  richness  of  natural  re- 
sources, a  population  of  high  cjuality,  and  a  social  organization  so 
favorable  to  the  display  of  the  best  qualities  of  the  people ! 

Persistence  of  the  frontier.  However,  it  is  possible  to  make 
a  good  beginning  and  then  to  fall  away  from  it  and  wander  off 
on  other  paths.  It  was  one  of  the  great  advantages  of  this  coun- 
try that  it  long  had  with  it  the  frontier  influences  which  we  have 
sketched.  These  influences  on  national  life  were  not  lost,  because 
we  had  the  frontier  always  with  us.  Once  the  states  of  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  were  our  frontier ;  then  it  was  western  Penn- 
sylvania and  New  York  and  the  rest  of  the  strip  west  of  the 
Appalachians  ;  presently  it  was  the  states  just  east  of  the  Missis- 
sippi ;  then  those  just  west  of  this  river;  then  tlie  1^'ar  and 
Farther  West.  Always  the  frontier  moved  westward,  but  it  never 
ceased  to  show  such  conditions  as  have  been  outlined,  and  to 
react,  through  the  influence  of  its  life,  upon  the  life  of  the 
nation.  W^e  had  an  immensity  of  land  for  the  population  to 
move  into ;  the  pressure  of  population  on  land  could  not  be- 
come heavy,  for  there  was  always  an  outlet  and  a  relief.  Tlu' 
country  was  always  underpopulated. 


;_^  INDUSTRY  ANT)   TRADE 

Men  at  a  premium,  l^ut  where  there  is  much  land  and  few 
men  there  is  a  demand  lor  men,  and  men  are  at  a  premium ; 
and  when  men  are  in  demand,  that  means  that  there  are  high 
rewards  for  their  services  and  efforts  —  good  profits,  high  wages, 
considerate  treatment.  This  gives  the  men  self-respect,  inde- 
pendence, and  other  valuable  qualities,  just  as  enslavement 
demeans  them  and  makes  them  cringing.  Prosperity  may  even 
make  them  conceited,  self-assertive,  overconfident,  and  con- 
temptuous of  others  ;  material  success  may  make  them  blind  to 
things  of  a  less  material  value.  The  American  type  has  doubt- 
less impressed  foreigners  as  boisterous,  raw,  and  bumptious ;  but 
it  has  been  strong  and  wholesome,  with  capacity  for  growth 
and  improvement.  Industrially  it  has  astonished  the  world  with 
its  performances.  And,  on  the  whole,  it  has  pulled  together, 
showing  itself  capable  of  preserving  its  integrity  despite  the 
huge  influx  of  aliens  ;  in  fact,  it  has  impressed  itself  upon  these 
foreign  elements  in  such  manner  as  to  draw  them  into  the 
nation  as  real  parts  of  it.  In  general,  there  has  come  out  of 
the  melting  pot  a  pretty  consistent  product. 

The  passing  of  the  frontier.  This  country  is  still  partially 
frontier  ;  it  is  still  underpopulated,  having  only  some  thirty-odd 
to  the  square  mile,  as  compared  with  older  countries,  where  this 
figure  runs  into  the  hundreds.  However,  it  is  filling  up,  and  the 
frontier  character  of  the  society  is  vanishing.  As  the  land  loads 
up  with  population  the  conditions  of  life  cannot  help  becoming 
more  and  more  like  those  of  older  countries  —  men  will  be  less 
in  demand  because  there  will  be  more  of  them  in  proportion  to 
the  land ;  and  so  there  will  no  longer  be  in  existence  those 
frontier  advantages  of  which  we  have  spoken  —  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity, freedom  of  individual  action,  and  so  on.  If  the  American 
type  is  not  to  be  altered,  we  shall  have  to  give  some  effort  to  pre- 
serving it ;  here  is  a  case  of  conservation  of  natural  resources 
which  has  escaped  the  attention  of  some  conservationists. 

American  social  life.  In  the  last  two  chapters  we  have  doubtless 
appeared,  at  times,  to  be  getting  rather  far  away  from  American 


SOCIAL  DEVELOPMENT  53 

industrial  development.  But  the  development  of  the  industries 
in  a  society  is  not  a  thing  by  itself,  apart  from  all  others  ;  it  is 
intimately  linked  up  with  all  other  parts  of  the  social  life.  The 
human  element  must  be  reckoned  with,  and  also  the  manner  in 
which  the  human  element  has  developed  in  the  mutual  relations 
of  men  with  one  another,  as  they  live  on  together  in  the  community 
and  the  nation.  Industrial  and  political  development  are  always 
more  or  less  interconnected  ;  it  could  even  be  shown  that  the 
type  of  a  people's  family  or  religious  life  influences  to  a  consider- 
able degree  its  type  of  industrial  life.  In  these  last  two  chapters 
we  have  tried  to  introduce  enough,  but  not  too  much,  concerning 
the  influence  of  factors  that  are  not  directly  industrial,  in  order 
to  give  the  student  a  broader  outlook  upon  the  nature  of  indus- 
trial development  than  he  could  get  from  mere  facts  and  figures 
of  a  strictly  industrial  order.  We  are  now  the  better  fitted  to 
understand  the  meaning  of  the  facts  and  figures  having  to  do 
with  the  several  most  important  of  our  national  industries,  and 
with  our  trade. 


PART  II.    AGRICULTURAL 
INDUSTRIES 

CHAPTER  V 

CEREALS 

Agriculture.  In  telling  about  the  various  ways  in  which  the 
population  of  this  country  has  dealt  with  its  natural  environment 
to  make  a  living,  we  shall  begin  with  the  agricultural  industries. 
This  is  because  farming  was  in  colonial  times,  and  is  now, 
the  foundation  of  all  industry.  All  the  needs  of  man  for  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter  are  supplied  by  products  of  the  soil ;  for  all 
animal  products  would  disappear  along  with  all  the  animals  were  it 
not  for  the  food  supplied  by  plant  life  and  derived  from  the  eartli. 
Agriculture  is,  as  Napoleon  is  reported  to  liave  said,  "  the  founda- 
tion of  commerce  and  manufacture."  Many  of  the  raw  materials 
important  and  indispensable  for  manufacture  are  deriwd  from 
agriculture,  to  say  nothing  of  the  farmer  being  the  producer  of 
food  to  support  human  life  in  general.  Agriculture  is  an  industry 
that  cannot  die  (;r  lapse  unless  the  race  is  to  pass  away.  Other 
industries  may  be  temporary  —  mines  may  become  exhausted  — 
but  agriculture  must  persist.  It  goes  without  the  saying  that 
agriculture  is  always  a  powerful  bulwark  of  national  strength. 

Agriculture  and  the  physical  factors.  As  compared  with  other 
industries    agriculture    is    more    intimatelv    dcpcnrlcnt    upon    tlic 


56  INDrSTRV  AND  TRADE 

physical  factors  of  natural  environment  reviewed  in  our  first  chap- 
ter ;  indeed,  these  factors  are  the  really  determining  ones  in  the 
production  of  crops.  And  this  is  said  in  full  realization  of  the 
powerful  influence  upon  those  other  industries  which  is  exer- 
cised by  climate,  weather,  water  supply,  and  the  other  factors 
mentioned  above. 

Agriculture  in  the  United  States.  Agriculture  has  always  been 
the  foundation  of  American  industries  and  trade  ;  it  has  been  the 
principal  source  of  our  wealth.  Throughout  the  whole  colonial 
period  it  was  the  main  industry  ;  in  fact,  it  was  the  only  really 
dominant  employment  of  the  country  until  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  centuiy.  Even  in  sections  which  derived  consider- 
able income  from  fishing  and  commerce,  such  as  New  Eng- 
land, agriculture  was  nevertheless  the  foundation  of  things.  Up 
to  1880  fifteen  out  of  twenty-one  presidents  of  the  United  States 
were  farmers  or  the  sons  of  farmers.  Not  until  1880  did  the 
combined  value  of  all  the  manufactures  of  our  country  surpass 
the  value  of  the  agricultural  products ;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
tremendous  advances  made  in  our  manufactures  during  the  last 
few  decades,  there  are  still  more  of  our  population  engaged 
in  agriculture  than  in  manufacturing.  So  that  it  is  fair  to  say 
that  agriculture  still  continues  to  be  the  dominant  factor  in 
our  national  wealth. 

Our  preeminence  in  agriculture.  We  have  also  surpassed  all 
other  countries  in  agricultural  development;  we  lead  in  the  annual 
value  of  farm  crops  produced.  This  preeminence  is  due  to  a  com- 
bination of  favoring  factors,  some  of  which  have  been  mentioned 
above  :  diversity  of  fertile  soils  ;  diversity  of  climatic  conditions, 
so  that  numerous  crops  can  be  raised  (in  the  wheat  belt,  corn  belt, 
cotton  belt,  tobacco  belt,  etc.) ;  an  energetic  and  resourceful  popu- 
lation ;  cooperative  state  and  Federal  departments  of  agriculture, 
which  further  the  interests  of  scientific  methods  ;  and  a  highly 
developed  transportation  system,  allowing  of  the  ready  marketing 
of  crops.  The  following  are  representative  types  of  agricultural 
industries. 


CEREALS 


57 


Cereals.  Cereals  hold  the  leading  place  among  the  great  vari- 
ety of  foodstuffs  raised  by  man  for  himself  and  for  his  domestic 
animals.  The  most  important  cereals  are  maize  (Indian  corn), 
wheat,  oats,  barley,  rye,  rice,  and  sorghum  (including  the  millets). 
Buckwheat  may  be  added  to  this  list,  though  it  is  not  strictly  a 
cereal.    The  cereal  crop  has  always  occupied  the  larger  part  of 


.„;.-                     .^M 

■  •/Vr  *'    j^gWBft^q^^Bl^B  PS^Jt"  '9         '^    ^^^^^El^rnl 

FIRM)   OF    MAIZK 


our  cultivated  land,  and  there  are  produced  in  this  country,  in 
an  average  year,  upwards  of  5,000,000,000  bushels  of  cereals, 
having  a  value  of  $3,000,000,000  or  more. 

Maize.  Maize  was  the  only  cereal  of  importance  native  to 
the  Americas.  It  was  probably  not  native  to  the  United  States. 
However,  when  Europeans  first  opened  up  the  New  World, 
this  plant  was  being  raised  from  Canada  to  southern  Chile,  and 
was  a  staple  vegetable  food  of  the  Indians.  In  colonial  times  it 
formed  the  principal  food  crop;  and  it  held  its  position  until  wheat 


.s 


INDISTRV    AND    IKADIs 


was  broLiijht  in  Ironi  liuropc  aiul  became  common.  Maize  was 
the  great  gift  of  the  Indians  to  the  white  man  ;  the  colonists 
quickly  adopted  its  cultivation  from  the  natives,  and  it  was  lucky 
for  them  that  such  a  resource  existed.  Maize  comes  to  maturity 
speedily  and  its  yield  is  large,  although  it  requires  less  cultivation 
than  almost  any  other  food  crop  ;  it  was  thus  wonderfully  adapted 
to  crude  pioneer  farming.    In  colonial  times  the  amount  produced 


CORN    PRODUCTION    KV    STATES   (IX    MILLIONS   OF   P.CSHELS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Rcpoii 


in  New  England  was  comparatively  small  ;  but  other  colonies  — 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  the  two  Carolinas,  and 
Georgia  —  were  exporting  corn  extensively;  and  Virginia  exported, 
more  than  once,  over  575,000  bushels.  This  grain  surplus  was 
exchanged  for  necessary  European  products. 

Corn  in  the  West.  It  was  the  opening  up  of  the  West  that 
paved  the  way  for  an  unheard-of  development  of  corn  production, 
for  the  real  cereal  belt  of  the  country  lies  west  of  the  Alleghenies. 
The  completion  of  the  Erie  Canal,  in  1825,  and  the  later  con- 
.struction  of  railroads  insured  cheap  transportation  for  the  crops  ; 


CEREALS  59 

and  the  fact  that  corn  turned  out  to  be  an  excellent  food  for 
cattle  and  hogs  stimulated  production.  In  some  )ears  there  was 
so  much  corn  in  the  West  that  it  was  used  for  fuel.  About  1870, 
in  certain  districts,  corn  was  considered  a  cheaper  fuel  than  coal 
at  nine  dollars  a  ton  —  and  this  does  not  refer  to  the  cobs  alone, 
but  includes  the  grain  on  the  cob.  Perhaps  we  could  not  find  a 
better  illustration  of  the  natural  productiveness  of  the  Western 
farms  than  this  case  of  burning  up  as  fuel  a  food  now  in  great 
demand  in  the  world. 

The  corn  crop.  In  1870  our  corn  crop  for  the  first  time  ex- 
ceeded 1,000,000,000  bushels,  and  in  only  three  years  since  (1871, 
1873,  and  1874)  has  the  yield  been  under  that  figure.  No  coun- 
try has  ever  surpassed  ours  in  corn  production,  nor  have  we  any 
serious  rivals  in  this  line.  We  raise  about  four  fifths  of  the  world's 
corn  ;  and  this  crop  easily  leads  our  others  in  money  value,  as 
well  as  in  acreage  and  quantity  produced.  About  one  half  of  the 
corn  is  raised  in  the  "corn  belt,"  which  includes  the  states  of 
Kansas,  Nebraska,  Illinois,  Iowa,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Missouri. 
The  average  yield  is  close  to  30  bushels  per  acre. 

Corn  exports.  Our  exports  of  corn  are  small.  Corn  meal  does 
not  keep  well  enough  for  exportation  ;  and  Europe  lacks  facili- 
ties for  milling  the  kernels.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  people  of 
Europe  do  not  prize  corn  as  a  food  for  man  to  anything  like 
the  degree  it  deserves  ;  some  of  them  seem  to  think  it  a  hard- 
ship to  be  obliged  to  use  it,  even  in  war  times,  instead  of  wheat. 
This  astonishes  an  American  when  he  first  learns  of  the  fact. 
Most  of  the  world's  maize  is  used  to  feed  stock,  and  this  is 
especially  true  since,  despite  our  own  use  of  corn  meal  as  a 
food  for  man,  we,  the  greatest  producers  of  corn,  are  also  lead- 
ing producers  of  meat  products.  We  really  export  our  corn  "on 
the  hoof "  ;  that  is,  in  the  form  of  beef  and  i)ork.  We  cause 
the  corn  to  be  transformed  into  meat  before  we  send  much  of  it 
abroad.  But  thus  transformed  it  becomes,  as  we  shall  see  later  on, 
one  of  our  most  important  export  materials.  This  explains  the 
rather   surprising   statement   with    which   this    ixuagraph    begins. 


6o 


INDUSTRY  AM)  TRADE 


Wheat.  The  use  of  wheat  bread  as  a  staple  article  of  diet  is 
now  regarded  as  a  mark  of  higher  civilization  ;  wheat  is  a  sort 
of  aristocratic  food.  This  is  a  kind  of  tradition,  though  there  is 
some  sense  in  it,  for  it  is  not  so  much  the  superior  value  of  wheat 
for  sustaining  life  that  makes  it  desirable  as  it  is  its  greater  attrac- 
tiveness, both  in  the  matter  of  taste  and  in  the  great  variety  of 
forms  in  which  it  may  appear  upon  the  table.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  fashion  in  foods,  as  well  as  in  dress,  and  wheat  is  the 
fashion  among  civilized  nations  of  the  Occident ;  it  is  preferred  to 

corn,  as  we  have  seen, 
for  com  is  regarded 
much  as  Dr.  Johnson 
regarded  oatmeal  — 
as  horse  food  for  the 
civilized  Englishman, 
although  Scotchmen, 
whom  he  hated,  were 
low  down  enough  to 
eat  it.  This  nonsense 
of  fashion  extends 
even  farther ;  for  it 
is  the  fashion  to  in- 
sist upon  using  wheat 
flour  which  is  almost  perfectly  white,  but  whose  whiteness  results 
from  getting  rid  of  what  is  the  most  nutritious  part  of  the  wheat 
grain.  However,  the  use  of  "whole  wheat"  is  becoming,  with 
the  extension  of  real  knowledge  about  the  constituents  of  the 
grain,  somewhat  more  the  mode,  and  is  insisted  upon  by  some 
people  who  wish  to  be  considered  scientific  in  the  matter  of 
their  eating. 

Wheat  in  the  colonies.  Wheat  was  not  knowm  in  America  be- 
fore Columbus  ;  but  in  the  Old  World  its  cultivation  reaches  back 
to  very  ancient  times  —  in  fact  into  prehistoric  ages,  for  wheat 
grains  have  been  found  in  the  ruins  of  Swiss  lake  dwellings.  We 
cannot  be  sure  about  the  exact  circumstances  of  its  introduction 


COLONIAL   GRIST   MILL 


CEREALS 


6i 


into  America.  There  is  a  story  of  a  Spaniard  who  found  a 
few  grains  mixed  in  with  his  rice,  and  who  carefully  picked 
them  out  and  planted  them,  thus  introducing  the  cereal  into  the 
Spanish-American  colonies.  Wheat  was  probably  brought  over  by 
early  English  colonists  and  sown  by  them.  For  a  time  Virginia 
gave  considerable  attention  to  its  culture,  several  hundred  acres 


HAKVE.STIX(;    WHEAT 


having  been  sown  to  wheat  as  early  as  1648  ;  but  the  tobacco 
crop  proved  to  be  so  much  more  profitable  in  Virginia,  despite 
the  demand  for  wheat,  that  the  latter  was  allowed  to  decline. 
Wheat  was  early  grown  in  New  England,  but  there  seems  to  have 
been  trouble  in  raising  the  crop,  so  that  the  colonists  fell  back 
on  corn  and  potatoes.  Wheat  almost  passed  out  of  cultivation 
with  the  opening  of  new  lands  in  the  central  colonics,  just  as  the 
wheat  production  of  the  Atlantic  states  declined  in  the  fare  of  the 
superior  productivity  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  in  the  middle  of 


62 


INDl'SIRV   AND    i'RADK 


the  nineteenth  eentury.  Hut  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  wheat 
was  one  of  the  leading  exports  p|  the  Northern  colonies,  and  the 
prominent  wheat  producer  of  1750  was  New  Jersey.  .(\^ 

Wheat  in  the  West.  About  the  middle  of  the  next  century  the 
center  of  wheat-raising  began  to  move  rapidly  westward.  In  1849 
onlv  a  little  over  5  per  cent  of  the  total  wheat  crop  was  produced 
in  states  west  of  the  Mississippi,  while  the  Atlantic  coastal  states 


WHEAT    PRODUCTION    BY   STATES   (IN    MILLIONS    OF    BUSHELS) 
After  map  in  Mojithly  Ci-op  Report  » 


were  responsible  for  over  half.  Pennsylvania  was  then  the  chief 
wheat  state  in  the  Union.  But  by  1869  the  Atlantic  states  were 
raising  only  a  fifth  of  this  crop,  and  the  center  of  production  was 
swiftly  moving  into  the  real  "  wheat  belt."  This  was  due  to  sev- 
eral causes,  such  as  the  rapid  settlement  of  the  prairie  lands  of 
the  Ohio  and  upper  Mississippi  valleys,  the  suitability  of  the 
climate  and  soil  in  those  sections,  the  development  of  railroads 
toward  the  west,  the  improvement  in  agricultural  implements,  the 
invention  of  the  threshing  machine,  and  other  such  preparations 
for  culture  on  the  srand  scale. 


CEREALS 


63 


The  wheat  crop.  Our  country  contains  the  greatest  wheat  fields 
in  the  world.  The  largest  yield  of  wheat  which  we  have  e\er  had, 
in  a  single  year,  was  1,011,000,000  bushels,  in  191 5.  The  center 
of  its  production  is  some  distance  west  of  Des  Moines,  Iowa,  hav- 
ing moved,  since  1850,  nearly  seven  hundred  miles  west  and  one 
hundred  north.  Our  crop  amounts  to  about  one  quarter  of  the 
world's  product.    The  average  yield  per  acre  in  the  United  States 


AN    IMMKNSIC   (iKAIX    KLKVATOR    IN   THE   WEST 


is  about  1 5  bushels  ;  if  much  care  is  given  to  the  crop,  where 
it  is  not  raised  on  a  large  scale,  the  yield  is  considerably  greater 
than  this  figure. 

Industries  connected  with  corn  and  wheat.  Connected  with 
wheat  and  corn  production  are  many  manufacturing  industries,  ~ 
such  as  milling  and  bolting  the  flour,  and  a  number  of  storing 
and  transportation  industries.  Grain  elevators  and  transportation 
agencies  give  employment  to  much  capital  and  many  men.  Of  an 
average  annual  crop  of  about  700,000,000  bushels  of  wheat,  we 


64 


INDISIRV   AM)    TRADE 


now  need  fivo  sixths  or  more  for  our  own  use  ;  the  remainder  is 
exported  either  in  the  raw  state  or  in  the  form  of  flour.  The 
Great  War  called  into  use  in  America  a  great  variety  of  wheat 
substitutes,  so  that  unusually  large  shipments  of  wheat  might 
be  released  to  be  sent  to  the  Allies. 

Oats.    This   is   one   of  the    grains  which    has    been  in   some 
countries   unpopular  as   a   human  food,  but  in  northern   Europe 


FLOUR   MILLS   AT   MINNEAPOLIS 


it  is  much  used  for^  that  purpose.  Said  a  Scotchman  who  was 
joked  by  an  Englishman  because  men  ate  in  Scotland  what 
horses  ate  in  England,  "  That  is  why  you  have  good  horses  in 
England  and  we  have  good  men  in  Scotland."  In  this  country 
oats  are  used  chiefly  as  stock  food,  and  by  man  in  the  form  of 
oatmeal,  rolled  oats,  etc.  There  was  a  sort  of  wild  oat,  called  pin- 
grass,  native  to  this  country,  but  the  variety  we  use  was  intro- 
duced from  the  Old  World,  where  it  was  used  in  very  early  times. 


CEREALS 


65 


The  oats  crop.  The  cultivated  variety  of  oats  was  introduced 
into  America  near  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  centur}-,  and 
in  colonial  times  oats  formed  an  important  crop  in  New  England 
and  the  middle  colonies.  The  plant  thrives  best  in  a  fairly  cool 
and  moist  climate  ;  the  leading  oats-producing  states  have  always 
been  the  northern  ones ;  at  the  present  time  80  to  90  per  cent 
of  our  crop  is  raised  in  the  North  Atlantic  and  North  Central 


/  •   / 

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t     •  \ 

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OATS   PKODLXTIOX    15V   STATES  (IX   MILLIONS   OF   BUSHELS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 


States.  As  early  as  1840  the  annual  crop  amounted  to  123,000,000 
bushels,  and  development  has  been  so  rapid  that  we  now  raise 
over  1,000,000,000  bushels  a  year  —  the  largest  yield  of  any 
country,  although  European  Russia  is  a  close  second.  The  aver- 
age yield  per  acre  is  not  far  from  30  bushels  —  much  larger  than 
that  of  wheat,  and  slightly  above  that  of  corn. 

Barley.  This  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  cultivated  cereals.  The 
plant  is  very  hardy  and  will  stand  considerable  cold,  but  it  can  be 
grown  successfully  in  a  comparatively  warm  climate ;  thus  it  is 
adapted  to  a  wide  range  of  conditions.    Until  rather  recent  times 


66 


INDLSIRV   AND    IRADK 


barlev  has  been  used  extensively  as  human  food,  and  barley  bread 
is  still  a  common  article  of  diet,  especially  for  the  poor,  in  certain 
regions  ;  but  as  wealth  and  civilization  have  extended,  wheat  has 
supplanted  barle\-  as  human  food,  and  barley  has  been  used 
almost  solely  for  animal  food  and  for  malt.  The  world's  barley 
is  produced  chiefly  by  Russia,  Germany,  and  Austria- Hungary. 


BARLEY   PRODUCTION   BY   STATES   (IX   THOUSANDS   OF   BUSHELS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Repoii 


The  barley  crop.  This  grain  was  introduced  into  the  colonies 
early  in  the  seventeenth  centur}',  being  sown  in  Massachusetts  in 
1620,  and  in  Virginia  in  161 1  ;  in  the  latter  region  it  soon  de- 
clined before  the  dominant  tobacco  production,  but  it  remained 
an  important  crop  in  the  middle  colonies  and  New  England. 
Barley  never  got  a  real  foothold  in  this  country,  however,  until 
recent  years.  In  1840  we  raised  a  little  over  4,000,000  bushels, 
and  as  late  as  1870  less  than  30,000,000.  But  at  present  the 
barley  production  is  on  the  rapid  increase  ;  in  1900  the  area  sown 
to  barley  was  still  less  than  3,000,000  acres  and  the  harvest  was 
59,000,000  bushels,  but  since  that  time  both  the  acreage  and  the 


CEREALS 


67 


production  have  greatly  expanded.    The  crop  is  raised  chiefly  in 
Minnesota,  the  Dakotas,  Cahfornia,  Wisconsin,  and  Iowa. 

Rye.  Rye  is  a  close  relative  of  wheat,  but  its  cultivation  began 
much  later  than  that  of  wheat  and  barley  ;  it  was  not  cultivated 
in  the  Roman  Empire  much  before  the  time  of  Christ.  It  is  an 
extremely  hardy  cereal,  will  grow  on  poor  soil,  and  will  stand  a 


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RYE   PRODUCTION    BY   STATES   (IX   THOUSANDS    OF   BUSHELS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 


severe  climate.  Once  xyo.  was  much  used  for  human  food,  and  is 
so  used  now  in  Europe,  notably  in  Scandinavia,  North  Germany, 
and  parts  of  Russia,  where  "  black  bread  "  is  a  staple  food  of  the 
peasants.  Elsewhere  it  is  mainly  a  cattle  food,  or  it  is  used  in  mak- 
ing intoxicants,  such  as  whisky  in  America  and  vodka  in  Russia. 

The  rye  crop.  Rye  was  to  be  found  under  cultivation  in  this 
country  in  1648.  By  1801  the  country  exported  nearly  400,000 
bushels,  and  rye  production  spread  pretty  generally  over  the  North- 
ern states.  In  colonial  times  it  was  commonly  used  as  human  food, 
being  mixed  with  Indian  meal  in  bread-making  ;  and  this  sort  of 
bread  for  a  long  time  remained  popular  in  rural  New  ICngland. 


68 


1M)L  STRV   AM)    I'RAUE 


But  rve  has  not  shared  to  any  great  extent  in  the  agricultural  expan- 
sion of  the  country  ;  its  march  westward  has  lagged  far  behind  that 
of  other  cereals.  The  acreage  of  rye  is  to-day  little  greater  than  it 
was  thirty  or  more  years  ago,  but  since  the  yield  per  acre  has  in- 
creased to  about  1 6  or  17  bushels,  the  annual  crop  has  grown  some- 
what; however,  it  is  still  under  50,000,000  bushels,  out  of  a  world 
crop  of  1,500,000,000  bushels.  The  states  raising  the  most  rye  are 
Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Michigan,  the  Dakotas,  and  Pennsylvania. 


HARVESTIXG    RICE    WITH    MACHIXKKV 


Rice.  Wild  rice  is  found  over  wide  areas  in  the  United  States 
and  is  rather  common  in  the  north  central  part  of  the  country. 
It  was  parched  by  the  Indians.  But  the  rice  of  commerce  is  an 
imported  product,  probably  native  in  southern  Asia,  where  it  was 
cultivated  ages  ago ;  it  was  brought  comparatively  recently  to 
Europe,  supposably  by  the  Moors  into  Spain.  White  rice  is  the 
variety  originally  introduced  into  this  country. 

The  rice  crop.  Rice  was  introduced  into  Virginia  in  1647;  into 
South  Carolina,  by  accident,  from  a  sailing  vessel  from  Madagas- 
car, in  1694  ;  into  Louisiana  in  1 718.    It  took  first  place  in  the 


CEREALS  69 

agriculture  of  South  Carolina.  About  1700  it  became  an  impor- 
tant export  article,  being  in  much  demand  in  Europe  and  the 
West  Indies,  and  its  culture  spread  rapidly.  By  1850  we  were 
raising  over  215,000,000  pounds  a  year,  of  which  South  Carolina 
furnished  160,000,000  pounds  and  Georgia  39,000,000.  The 
Civil  War  nearly  killed  the  industry ;  labor  was  demoralized,  and 
the  dams  and  gates,  used  in  flooding  the  fields,  got  out  of  repair. 
Since  the  war  the  industry  has  slowly  recuperated,  but  its  center 
has  shifted  so  that  now  Louisiana  and  Texas  lead  in  production. 
Our  present  crop  is  between  25,000,000  and  30,000,000  bushels 
a  year.  The  yield  per  acre  is  relatively  large,  so  that  rice  makes 
a  cheap  food  for  people  on  a  low  scale  of  living,  as  in  the  East ; 
in  wheat-eating  countries,  like  ours,  rice  is  unduly  neglected  as 
a  staple  food,  being  used  rather  as  a  table  delicacy. 

Sorghum.  There  are  many  varieties  of  sorghum,  several  of 
which  are  grown  in  this  country.  The  seeds  are  used  as  food  for 
man  and  beast,  as  well  as  for  making  alcoholic  beverages.  Sweet 
sorghums  are  a  source  of  sirup  and  sugar.  The  brush  of  the 
broom-corn  variety  is  made  into  brooms.  Some  varieties  are  used 
widely  for  hay  and  silage.  The  sorghums  flourish  in  warm,  dry 
regions,  being  notably  resistant  to  drought.  They  play  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  agriculture  of  the  southern  part  of  the  Western 
High  Plains  region,  but  are  by  no  means  confined  to  this  area. 

Buckwheat.  This  is  not  really  a  cereal,  but  is  allied  to  plants 
like  the  dock,  sorrel,  and  smartweed.  It  was  brought  to  this 
country  by  the  Dutch  and  sown  on  Manhattan  Island  for  horse 
feed.  The  seed  is  now  used  to  some  extent  as  poultry  food; 
and  the  plant  is  sometimes  raised  solely  for  the  honey  it  yields 
to  bees.  As  everyone  knows,  its  chief  appearance  upon  the  table 
is  in  the  buckwheat  griddlecake.  It  has  been  grown  chiefly  for 
home  consumption,  and  production  has  not  flourished.  In 
1840  about  7,000,000  bushels  were  raised;  in  i860  about 
17.500,000  bushels;  in  1870  about  10,000,000  bushels;  to-day 
the  yield  is  between  15,000,000  and  20,000,000  bushels,  of 
which  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  raise  more  than  half. 


^i&:i5 


CHAPTER   Vl 


VEGETABLES  AND  FRUITS 

Their  importance.  The  importance  of  vegetables  and  fruits  for 
the  well-being  of  men  does  not  need  to  be  explained  to  anyone  ; 
but  perhaps  we  now  understand  better  as  a  people  than  we  ever 
did  before  the  importance  of  producing  these  foods.  Vegetable 
gardens  can  be  located  almost  anywhere  throughout  the  country, 
and  even  in  city  lots. 

Early  conditions.  jMost  of  the  vegetables  and  fruits  commonly 
raised  in  this  country  were  not  native  to  it ;  in  fact,  only  a  few 
of  them  were  native  to  the  New  World.  The  Indians  had  re- 
course to  certain  berries,  nuts,  and  wild  fruits,  and  they  cultivated 
rather  widely  beans,  squashes,  and  other  minor  vegetables  ;  but 
nearly  all  the  vegetables  and  fruits  of  commerce  were  developed 
in  other  countries  and  were  introduced  here  by  the  settlers.  This 
was  done  so  much  as  a  matter  of  course  that  we  have  but  little 
information  concerning  the  origin  and  first  stages  of  the  vegetable 
and  fruit  industries  of  the  country ;  almost  everybody,  in  earlier 
times,  did  some  gardening  on  the  side  ;  the  clergyman,  the  law- 
yer, and  even  the  physician  were  in  some  degree  farmers.  In 
fact,  any  one  of  these  professional  men  might  have  to  collect  his 
fees,  on  occasion,  in  produce — "in  kind,"  as  such  payment  was 
called  —  for  in  the  new  country  there  was  often  a  dearth  of 
money.  Rents  were  not  seldom  arranged  to  be  paid  in  kind  ;  so 
that,  in  reality,  garden  products  attained  a  dignity  now  held  by 
coins,  bills,  and  checks. 


VEGETABLES   AND   FRl^ITS  71 

Later  conditions.  Gardening  of  this  sort  was  on  the  small  scale; 
the  raising  of  fruits  and  vegetables  for  commercial  purposes  dates, 
in  this  country,  from  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Up  to  that  time  they  were  raised  for  local  consumption,  for  the 
most  part,  and  were  eaten,  of  course,  only  in  season.  The  idea 
itself  of  having  vegetables  and  fruits  out  of  season  reaches  back 
only  a  few  decades,  and  was  started  by  certain  Northern  cities  that 
had  good  transportation  connections  with  farming  districts  not  far 
away.  But  with  the  advance  of  transportation,  centers  of  popula- 
tion were  enabled  to  extend  their  reach  and  their  demand.  Once 
the  movement  was  well  started,  large  areas,  particularly  in  the 
South,  came  to  be  devoted  to  garden  crops  ;  and  there  are  now 
whole  sections  of  the  country  whose  agricultural  efforts  are  devoted 
almost  wholly  to  supplying  Northern  markets  with  fresh  vegetables 
and  fruits  out  of  season. 

Transportation  of  vegetables  and  fruits.  This  whole  movement, 
as  is  easily  seen,  depends  upon  the  excellence  of  the  transporta- 
tion system.  The  carrying  trade  for  garden  products  and  fruit 
from  South  to  North  was  in  the  hands,  first  of  all,  of  the  steam- 
ship lines  ;  and  it  is  said  that  the  first  consignment  dates  from 
1847,  when  a  small  quantity  of  lettuce,  radishes,  mint,  and  straw- 
berries was  brought  to  New  York.  In  the  spring  of  1885  arrived 
the  first  all-rail  shipment  of  garden  truck  from  the  South  to  New 
York.  In  the  eighties  came  the  first  carloads  of  oranges  from 
Florida,  and  about  that  time  the  first  large  consignments  of  straw- 
berries. From  these  small  and  recent  beginnings  there  has  devel- 
oped an  enormous  trade,  which  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
business  between  South  and  North  ;  for  there  is  a  flow  of  vege- 
tables and  fruits  to  every  town  and  city  from  its  more  immediate 
agricultural  environs.  Indeed,  the  population  is  becoming  some- 
what spoiled  by  the  luxuries  it  has  thus  gained,  and  people  arc 
coming  to  feel  it  a  hardship  if  they  cannot  have  these  extraordi- 
nary advantages  which  were  denied  to  all  humanity  up  to  recent 
years.  The  former  luxuries  are  coming  to  be  thought  necessities 
—  necessities  that  one  must  have,  however  much  the  having  of 


72 


INDISIRV   AND   TRADE 


them  increases  the  cost  of  living.    But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must 
be  reahzed  that  the  very  existence  of  great  centers  of  population 

would  be  impossible  were 
it  not  for  the  development 
of  food  transportation  on  a 
large  scale  and  from  greater 
and  greater  distances. 

We  shall  now  enter  into 
some  details  respecting  the 
raising  of  the  several  most 
important  vegetable  and  fruit 
crops. 

Vegetables 

Potatoes.  The  potato  is 
very  rich  in  starch,  and  is 
a  widely  consumed  and  fav- 
orite food  in  both  Europe 
and  America.  Next  to  bread, 
the  potato  is  the  staple  food 
in  this  country ;  indeed,  it 
enjoys  a  reputation  of  supe- 
riority which  has  led  less- 
informed  people,  in  time  of 
scarcity,  to  provide  them- 
selves with  it  at  an  immensely 
increased  price,  when  such  a 
food  as  rice  remained  com- 
paratively cheap.  They  have 
believed,  mistakenly,  that 
potatoes  were  a  real  neces- 
sitv  for  people  doing  heavy 

manual  labor,   and  have  rebelled  against  using  substitutes. 

The    potato   crop.     Roth   the  white  and  the  sweet  potato  are 

native  to  America.    The  former  grew  wild  on  the  plateaus  of  both 


NEW  POTATOES 


A  POTATO  PLANTER 


VEGETABLES  AND  FRUITS 


73 


Mexico  and  western  South  America,  and  was  there  encountered,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  by  the  Spaniards.  It  was  early  introduced 
into  the  colonies  and  has  long  been  produced  as  a  food  for  local 
consumption.  But  as  a  commercial  item  neither  the  white  nor  the 
sweet  variety  attained  much  prominence  until  about  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  development  of  transportation 
—  here  again  the  condition  allowing  of  wide  industrial  expansion 


i^b-^ 

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\VHrrE    I'OTATO    PRODUCTION    BY    STATES   (IX    MILLIONS    OK    lU'SIIELS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 


—  made  shipments  possible.  At  present  potatoes  stand  sixth  on 
the  basis  of  annual  farm  value  —  that  is,  value  before  leaving  the 
farm  —  being  surpassed  only  by  corn,  cotton,  hay,  wheat,  and  oats. 
Though  widely  cultivated,  the  potato  is  raised  for  the  most  part 
in  the  northern  and  eastern  sections  of  the  United  States;  Minne- 
sota, Wisconsin,  Michigan,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maine 
are  prominent  producers,  and  the  irrigated  regions  of  the  Far 
West  are  beginning  to  contribute  copiously  to  the  annual  yield. 

Potato  cultivation.     The  average  yield   per  acre  for   potatoes 
is  between  90  and   100  bushels  —  a  large  figure  as  compared  with 


74 


INDUS'l'RV   AND    I'RADE 


the  average  for  wlieat,  l^ut  in  order  to  raise  a  good  potato  crop, 
much  more  care  and  expense  have  to  be  undergone  than  in  raising 
wheat  and  other  cereals  ;  wet  weather,  dry  rot,  and  the  potato  bug 
(Colorado  beetle)  are  dangers  to  the  crop  that  must  be  endured 

or  provided  against. 
Taking  into  con- 
sideration our  im- 
mense agricultural 
area,  our  yield  of 
potatoes  is  relatively 
small ;  in  a  normal 
year  France  pro- 
duces more  than  we 
do,  while  Germany's 
crop  is  five  or  six 
times  as  large  as 
ours.  Even  the 
United  Kingdom 
raises  about  two 
thirds  as  many  pota- 
toes as  are  grown 
in  the  whole  United 
States.  The  possi- 
bility of  increasing 
our  potato  yield  is 
almost  unlimited. 

Beans  and  peas. 
These  include  many 
varieties  and  are  known  as  legumes.  They  have  nodules,  or  warty- 
looking  protuberances,  on  their  roots,  where  are  to  be  found  mil- 
lions of  microscopic  bacteria  having  the  power  of  making  nitrates 
from  the  free  nitrogen  of  the  air  and  of  storing  up  these  nitrates  in 
the  plants.  Hence,  if  the  roots  of  the  plants  are  left  in  the  soil,  it 
becomes  so  much  the  richer  ;  and  one  way  of  fertilizing  poor  soils 
is  to  sow  a  crop  of  legumes  and  then  plow  the  whole  crop  in. 


NODULES  ON  ROOTS  OF  BEANS 


VEGETABLES  AND   FRUITS 


75 


The  crop  of  beans  and  peas.  Peas  and  beans  have  long  been 
grown  in  this  country,  both  for  human  food  and  for  cattle  fodder. 
The  natives  raised  some  varieties  before  the  white  man  came ; 
and  they  were  planted  as  early  as  1602  in  New  England,  and 
1644  by  the  Dutch.  They  were  raised  also  along  the  southern 
Atlantic  coast,  and  were  even  exported,  in  small  quantities,  before 
the  Revolution.    The  annual  export  for  the  twenty  years  prior  to 


'^mm 

lff#5# '  ^'^^"^r 

v'^pi^i 

A   LOAD   OF  GARDEN   TRUCK    MOVING  TO   THE  CITY 


18 1 7  amounted,  on  the  average,  to  90,000  bushels.  At 
in  this  country  the  relative  yields  of  both  crops  are  small 
pared  with  the  case  elsewhere  ;  this  is  probably  because 
our  nitrogenous  food  from  meats  and  dairy  products,  of  w 
consume  a  large  amount  per  capita.  British  India,  Italy, 
and  Spain  are  among  the  largest  producers  of  legumes 
these  countries  the  bulk  of  the  people  is  living  on  a  muc 
scale  than  is  the  working  population  of  our  country. 

Other  vegetables.  Numerous  other  garden  vegetables 
basis  of  local  industries  throughout  the  country,  i)ut  we 
need  to  go  into  further  detail.     In  a  word,  it  ma\'  be  s 


present 
as  com- 

we  get 
hich  we 

Russia, 
;  in  all 
h  lower 

arc  the 

do  not 

aid  that 


76  INDUSTRY  AM)    I'RADE 

since  the  rest  of  the  garden  vegetables  are  rather  bulky,  and  also 
perishable,  there  is  not  a  very  wide  market  for  them,  excepting 
for  out-of-season  distribution.  Such  products  are  the  several  varie- 
ties of  garden  truck  ;  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  raised  and  con- 
sumed locally.  Perhaps  the  sugar  beet  should  receive  especial 
mention.  In  Europe  it  has  generally  been  cultivated  and  pulled 
out  of  the  ground  with  exceeding  care,  lest  it  be  bruised  and  thus 
spoiled  ;  but  in  this  country  it  is  torn  rudely  from  the  ground, 
and  then,  depending  upon  our  superior  transportation  system,  we 
hurry  it  to  the  sugar-beet  factory  before  it  has  time  to  decay.  In 
Europe,  also,  the  beet  from  which  the  juice  has  been  pressed 
(beet-cake)  is  of  considerable  use  as  food  for  stall-fed  cattle ; 
whereas  in  this  country,  where  cattle  can  be  pastured  or  fed  upon 
forage,  it  is  of  less  importance.  And  the  beet-sugar  industry,  as 
we  shall  later  see,  is  of  relatively  small  significance  among  us. 

Fruits 

Fruit-raising.  In  the  early  history  of  this  country  fruits,  being 
regarded  as  luxuries,  were  scarcely  used  by  the  mass  of  the 
people.  But  attention  came  to  be  directed  to  them  by  the  wealthy 
and  cultured  classes ;  and  once  started,  fruit  cultivation  advanced 
apace,  until  at  the  present  time  fruit-raising  has  come  to  be  an 
important  industry  throughout  extensive  areas  of  the  country.  In 
general,  the  fruits  we  raise  are  those  of  relatively  low  food  value. 
It  is  not  meant  to  say  that  fruits  are  not  necessary  and  wholesome 
for  the  human  body  —  quite  the  contrary ;  but  one  could  scarcely 
live  on  apples,  pears,  grapes,  peaches,  oranges,  and  other  of  our 
American  fruits.  Their  food  value  is  not  sufficient ;  they  are 
largely  "  flavored  water "  as  distinguished  from  such  fruits  as 
dates,  figs,  bananas,  and  other  products  of  a  warmer  climate,  which 
have  a  high  food  value  and  form  a  real  ""  staff  of  life  "  to  the 
people  who  raise  them.  But  ever^'one  likes  fruit,  and  where  the 
standard  of  living,  as  in  this  country,  will  allow  of  it,  there  is  a 
place  for  a  high  development  of  production. 


VEGETABLES  AND   FRUITS 


11 


Apples.  The  apple  is  an  Old  World  product,  having  existed  in 
Europe,  in  both  the  wild  and  the  cultivated  form,  since  prehis- 
toric times.  In  early  colonial  days  it  was  difficult  to  bring  young 
apple  trees  across  the  ocean  ;  but  there  were  no  native  trees,  and 
so  the  fruit  had  to  be  grown  almost  exclusively  from  seeds,  which 
meant  that  the  trees  were  very  long  in  coming  to  maturity.    The 


.Jg^ 

^ 

E'"^ 

Mlb 

^^^^' 

1 

\ 

1 

,-.;;.•-_--,      Vi             --J^ia** 

A    ROCHESTER   FRUIT  NURSERY 

introduction  was,  therefore,  a  slow  process.  Also  the  growing  of 
trees  from  seed,  and  allowing  them  to  mature  without  grafting, 
results  in  a  poor  quality  of  fruit  —  all  of  which  facts  may  account 
for  the  circumstance  that  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  apples 
were  grown  in  this  country  almost  exclusively  for  cider.  Not  until 
1830  did  our  government  begin  to  collect  statistics  concerning 
orchard  products.  However,  there  were  some  apple  trees  to  be 
had  even  as  early  as  1640,  for  it  seems  that  in  that  year  five 
hundred  young  apple  trees  from  a  nursery  in  Massachusetts  were 
exchanged  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  land. 


78  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Apple-raising.  Up  to  KS25  or  so  our  apple  orchards  were 
confined  cliietiy  to  New  England  and  Long  Island,  though  there 
were  some  in  New  Jersey  and  New  York.  Toward  the  middle 
of  the  century  there  came  about  a  marked  improvement  in  the 
industry,  due  to  the  assistance  of  the  government,  the  formation 
of  horticultural  societies,  and  other  such  encouragement.  Nurser- 
ies became  numerous,  Rochester  and  other  centers  in  New  York 
State  having  taken  up  this  specialty.  Prizes  were  given  for  choice 
apples,  and  attention  began  to  be  given  especially  to  winter  varie- 
ties. Then,  with  the  development  of  steam  navigation  across  the 
Atlantic,  we  began  the  exportation  of  the  fruit;  by  1859  we  were 
exporting  1 20,000  barrels  from  Boston  alone.  Varieties  continued 
to  improve  and  knowledge  to  be  gathered  as  to  the  adaptability 
of  this  or  that  variety  to  a  particular  climate  or  soil.  Then  apple 
culture  began  to  spread  over  the  whole  country. 

The  apple  crop.  At  the  present  time  the  eastern  part  of  the 
country  is  preeminent  in  apple-raising,  though  the  Pacific  states 
produce  some  superior  fruit.  Both  in  acreage  and  in  annual  value 
of  product  the  apple  far  exceeds  all  other  fruit  crops.  The  states 
which  lead  in  the  number  of  apple  trees  of  bearing  age  are  those 
of  the  northeastern  region,  and  New  York  is  the  chief  apple- 
producing  state. 

Peaches.  The  peach  is  an  Old  World  product,  having  been 
cultivated  in  China  from  very  early  times ;  thence  it  spread  toward 
the  west  and  for  a  long  time  has  been  planted  in  sheltered  spots 
in  Europe.  It  seems  to  have  been  rather  commonly  known  in 
all  the  colonies  previous  to  the  Revolution. 

Peach-raising.  The  peach  tree  is  not  so  hardy  as  the  apple, 
and  climate  is  an  important  factor  in  its  life  and  productivity. 
Severe  winters  and  late  frosts  are  likely  to  injure  the  buds  and 
tender  twigs.  Again,  this  tree  is  cultivated  in  rather  restricted 
areas,  which  are  widely  scattered  over  the  country.  Several  of 
these  may  be  mentioned  :  western  New  York ;  the  region  imme- 
diately east  of  Lake  Michigan  ;  that  east  of  Chesapeake  Bay,  in 
Maryland  and  Delaware  ;  Connecticut,  especially  upon  the  southern 


VEGETABLES  AND  FRUITS 


79 


slopes  of  the  hills  overlooking  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut 
River ;  northwestern  Arkansas  and  southwestern  Missouri,  along 
the  southern  slopes  of  the  Ozarks  ;  the  state  of  Georgia,  which 
is  usually  the  largest  peach  producer  of  the  Southeast,  and  which 
has  the  advantage  of  the  Northern  market,  without  competition 
from  other  regions,  at  a  time  when  peaches  from  other  sections 


DRVIXf;    CALU'OKNIA    PEACHES 


have  not  yet  come  into  tlie  market ;  and,  finally,  California,  whicli 
shows  climatic  conditions  favorable  to  the  crop,  and  which  nor- 
mally produces  more  peaches  than  any  other  state  in  the  Union. 
The  California  product  is  marketed  widely  in  the  cities  of  the 
East,  and  is  sometimes  sent  abroad  ;  but  much  of  it  is  dried  or 
canned,  especially  when  the  market  for  the  raw  fruit  is  unfax'orable 
—  as  is  true  also  in  other  peach  areas. 

Grapes.     The  grape  has  been   cultivated  from  time  iiiinu-mo- 
rial.     We  do  not  know  where  it  originated,   but  il  was  an   ( )kl 


So 


INnrSTRV  AND  TRADE 


World  product  and  early  sj^read  over  Europe.  It  was  carried  from 
Great  l^ritain  to  America  in  early  colonial  times.  However,  we 
were  not  entirely  dependent  on  Europe  for  the  vine  ;  there  are 
several  varieties  of  nati\e  grape,  notably  the  Catawba,  which  have 
been  domesticated.  The  vine  did  not  attain  any  great  prominence 
until  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  when  grape-growing, 


A   FLOURISHING   VINEYARD 


especially  for  wine,  took  a  considerable  start.  Since  that  time 
the  industry  has  grown  to  such  proportions  that  the  annual  value  of 
the  grape  crop  now  stands  third  among  the  fruits,  being  exceeded 
only  by  the  apple  and  peach  crops. 

Grape-raising.  There  are  two  leading  areas  in  the  United 
States  where  grapes  are  grown  extensively  as  a  money  crop :  the 
eastern  grape  belt,  in  New  York,  between  the  eastern  shores  of 
Lakes  Erie  and  Ontario  and  the  central  part  of  the  state ;  and 


VEGETABLES  AND  FRUITS 


the  western  belt,  in  California,  where  numerous  Mediterranean 
varieties  have  been  introduced.  In  the  eastern  belt  American 
varieties  lead  ;  in  the  western,  European  varieties.  California  is 
by  far  the  largest  producer,  followed  by  New  York,  Michigan, 
Iowa,  Missouri,  and  North  Carolina. 

Oranges.  The  orange  tree  is  an  Old  World  product,  having 
been  grown  in  China  and  India  since  very  early  ages  ;  its  culture 
spread  to  America 
by  way  of  Europe  in 
recent  times.  The 
plant  is  essentially  a 
tropical  or  subtropi- 
cal one,  and  so  can 
be  grown  success- 
fully only  in  the 
warmer  sections  of 
the  country.  The 
sour  orange  was 
brought  to  Florida 
by  the  Spaniards  in 
1560;  it  ran  wild, 
and  until  about  1880 
large  groves  of  wild 
oranges  were  to  be  found.  The  planting  of  orange  groves  for 
commercial  purposes  is  of  recent  date  ;  it  is  said  that  this  was 
first  done  by  some  Northerners  who  went  to  Florida  after  the 
Civil  War;  and  as  late  as  1880  the  industry  was  still  in  its 
infancy.  By  1890  orange-raising  had  made  considerable  progress, 
and  since  then  has  increased  rapidly,  especially  in  California. 
Oranges  are  on  the  market  now  every  month  in  the  year,  for 
the  crop  does  not  come  to  maturity  all  at  the  same  time.  Unex- 
pected frosts  cause  occasional  great  loss  in  the  orange  groves, 
amounting  to  millions  of  dollars.  And  along  with  the  oranges 
the  grapefruit  is  increasing  in  importance,  although  but  a  few 
years  ago  little  or  nothing  was  heard  of  it. 


AN   ORANGE   GROVE    IN    FLORmA 


82  IXDL  SIRV   AM)    TRADE 

Other  fruits.  There  are  numerous  other  important  fruit  crops 
in  this  eountr\-,  among  them  the  strawberry,  plum,  pear,  cherry, 
raspberry,  and  blackberry.  These  are  very  widely  cultivated  garden 
crops.  We  raise  also  lemons,  dates,  figs,  and  olives,  whereas  not 
long  ago  such  of  these  as  we  used  came  from  abroad.  Owing  to 
the  variety  of  climate  in  this  vast  land,  ranging  from  cold  almost 
to  tropical,  there  seems  to  be  no  limit  to  the  possibilities  of  intro- 
duction of  plants  from  other  lands.  However,  unless  we  find 
some  region  particularly  favorable  for  fruit,  such  as  California,  it 
may  pay  better,  from  a  business  standpoint,  to  bend  our  energies 
to  the  production  of  crops  where  we  have  a  distinct  natural  advan- 
tage. This  is  the  case  with  wheat  and  corn  ;  we  can  do  better 
to  sell  these  and  buy  from  abroad  those  products  in  the  growing 
of  which  the  people  abroad  have  an  advantage  over  us. 

Canned  fruits  and  vegetables.  The  canning  industry  based 
upon  vegetables  and  fruits  is  a  very  extensive  one  in  this  country. 
We  hear  but  little  about  the  beginnings  of  it  until  near  the  middle 
of  the  last  century;  in  1846  fruit  and  vegetable  canneries  were 
in  operation  in  New  York,  Boston,  Baltimore,  Newark,  Portland, 
and  Eastport  (Maine).  Those  of  Newark  prepared  the  canned 
goods  for  Dr.  Kane's  arctic  expedition.  After  1850  canneries 
began  to  develop  rapidly  under  the  stimulus  of  an  increasing  de- 
mand for  goods ;  they  were  introduced  on  the  Pacific  coast  as  early 
as  1856,  and  by  1866  they  existed  in  most  fruit-raising  and 
vegetable-raising  regions.  The  industry  has  had  a  phenomenal 
success.  Likewise  the  dr)'ing  of  vegetables  and  fruits,  which  is 
another  method  of  preserving  them  for  use  out  of  season,  has 
become  a  prominent  adjunct  to  the  basic  industry. 


''■\!!/" ' '  I  ''''■'^' 


[[32^33-^  T^^ 


ff~^:. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SUGAR 

Extent  of  sugar  production.  This  is  one  of  the  most  valuable 
products  derived  from  the  vegetable  world.  It  is  essential  to  the 
life  of  plants,  many  of  which  have  food  reserves  stored  away  in 
the  form  of  starch,  which,  after  being  converted  into  sugar,  is 
used  by  the  plants  themselves.  From  several  plants  available  for 
his  use,  man  has  learned  to  extract  the  sugar  in  tremendous  quan- 
tities ;  the  amount  that  figures  in  the  world's  commerce  reaches 
twenty  million  tons  annually,  and  in  addition  to  this  there  are 
large  quantities  that  do  not  figure  at  all  in  commercial  statistics, 
being  produced  and  consumed  locally  in  countries  of  the  Far  East, 
in  Africa,  and  in  other  places  where  it  is  impossible  to  keep 
track  of  production. 

Sources  of  sugar.  In  the  tropics  sugar  is  often  derived  from 
the  sweet  juice  of  certain  varieties  of  palm  ;  in  cooler  regions, 
such  as  Canada  and  the  United  States,  the  sugar  maple  provides 
maple  sugar.  Honey  was  undoubtedly  the  first  saccharine  sub- 
stance used  by  man  ;  in  using  it  he  depended,  of  course,  upon 
the  collections  made  by  bees  from  myriad  plant  sources.  The 
"  land  of  milk  and  honey  "  was,  in  Bible  times,  the  land  of  luxury 
and  plenty. 

The  love  of  luxuries.  We  wish  here  to  pause  for  a  moment 
to  remark  that  human  industry  and  commerce  have  never  con- 
fined themselves  to  merely  useful  products.  In  the  case  of  fruits, 
it  is  not  the  absolute  food  value  that  makes  them  attractixe  and  in 

f^3 


84 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


demand  ;  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  sugar  and  other  commer- 
cial products  later  to  be  mentioned.  They  are  wanted  because  they 
please  the  palate  —  because  they  respond  to  desires  that  are  above 
and  bevond  mere  existence.  The  savage  would  spend  an  amount 
of  effort  and  care  in  getting  a  supply  of  honey  to  which  nothing 
except  dire  hunger  would  have  driven  him  had  his  object  been 

merely  common  food. 
There  never  was  any 
other  form  of  human 
trade  which  surpassed 
the  trade  in  spices  in 
the  eagerness  and  in- 
tensity with  which  it 
was  pursued.  Again 
and  again  it  has  been 
shown  that  luxuries 
will  appeal  to  a  people 
where  necessities  make 
little  or  no  impression 
upon  them.  We  shall 
have  occasion  to  recall 
this  fact,  from  time  to 
time,  as  we  go  on. 

Sugar  as  a  luxury 
and  a  necessity.  In 
the  case  of  sugar,  which 
is  before  us,  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  it  possesses  no  food 
value,  —  quite  the  contrary,  —  but  it  is  the  taste  of  sugar  that 
made  it  popular.  It  was  once  a  rare  luxury  ;  it  was  very  scarce  in 
Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  even  used  as  a  medicine  for 
lung  and  throat  troubles.  In  those  days  a  young  man  could  please 
a  young  woman  as  much  by  securing  her  a  lump  of  sugar  as  he 
could  now  by  giving  her  a  big  box  of  candy,  but  he  did  not  get 
off  any  cheaper.  What  was  then  a  great  and  costly  luxury  has 
now  become  a  cheap  necessity ;  anyone  who,  in  normal  times, 


CUTTING    SUGAR   CAXE 


SUGAR 


!5 


cannot  afford  sugar  is  very  poor  indeed.  Many  such  luxuries  end 
by  becoming  necessities  ;  it  was  with  sugar  as  it  is  coming  to  be 
with  floor  coverings,  hardwood  floors,  and  the  telephone.  Nowa- 
days we  think  we  cannot  get  along  without  things  which  our 
ancestors  never  dreamed  of  having,  and  thus  our  life  is  constantly 
becoming  more  costly  and  more  complicated.  It  is  perhaps  well 
for  us  that  occasional 
pinches  force  us  to  drop 
back  on  the  simpler  things 
and  to  moderate  some- 
what our  insistence  upon 
what  are  really  luxuries. 
Sugar,  however,  while  it 
is  a  luxury  when  used 
with  reckless  profusion, 
and  while  it  may,  so  used, 
do  detriment  to  the  body, 
has  its  distinct  food  value, 
as  some  others  of  the 
luxuries  have  not. 

The  cane  and  the  beet. 
We  return  now  to  the 
common  sources  of  com- 
mercial sugar.  Of  all  the 
plants  from  which  it  is 
derivable,  there  are  two  which  have  stood  the  test  better  than  the 
rest,  namely,  the  sugar  cane  and  the  sugar  beet.  I'he  former  came 
into  use  long  before  the  latter  and  deserves  first  mention. 

Sugar  cane.  This  is  a  large,  grasslike  plant  which  thrives  best 
within  or  near  the  tropics,  where  it  grows  to  a  height  of  twenty 
feet.  The  stems  are  often  a  couple  of  inches  in  diameter  and 
have  a  tough  outer  covering  inclosing  the  sugar-containing  tissue, 
which  is  soft.  Sugar  cane  is  another  very  anciently  cultivated 
plant,  of  Asiatic  origin.  Its  culture  spread  westward  to  Africa, 
Sicily,   and  southern   Spain,   and  thence,   early   in   the   sixteenth 


SUGAR    BEETS 


86  IXDL  STRV  AM)    TRADK 

centun',  to  Brazil.  It  was  introduced  into  Haiti  in  1520  and  soon 
afterwards  was  to  be  found  in  Mexico. 

Introduction  of  the  cane.  The  Jesuits  are  said  to  have  brought 
the  cane  to  this  country  in  175 1,  when  they  introduced  some 
plants  from  San  Domingo  into  Louisiana ;  but  httle  headway  was 
made  until  1794,  when  persecuted  Frenchmen  fied  from  San 
Domingo  to  Louisiana.  Later  on  the  culture  extended  somewhat 
into  Texas  and  also  to  the  east;  in  1805  an  enterprising  Georgia 
planter  secured  and  set  out  one  hundred  young  canes,  which 
rapidly  propagated,  the  culture  being  extended  into  Florida  and 
Alabama.  But  it  soon  appeared  that  the  Louisiana  plantations 
were  by  far  the  most  productive,  and  the  industry  never  got  on 
very  well  elsewhere;  in  1850  eleven  twelfths  of  the  country's 
yield  of  cane  sugar  and  molasses  was  from  Louisiana.  This  situa- 
tion has  not  altered  much  in  more  recent  years.  In  1820  a  hardier 
variety  of  cane  was  introduced  from  Java,  which  enabled  the 
Louisiana  plantations  to  be  extended  farther  toward  the  north, 
with  the  result  of  much  enlarging  the  area  of  production. 

The  cane-sugar  crop.  Cane-sugar  cultivation  in  this  country 
has  had  its  ups  and  downs.  Until  1843  our  imports  exceeded 
the  domestic  production,  but  in  that  year  the  latter  more  than 
doubled  the  former;  in  1846,  1848,  and  1854  more  was  pro- 
duced here  than  was  imported.  Then  came  the  Civil  War,  which 
ruined  the  industry:  Louisiana  produced  191,000  tons  in  1862; 
28,000  in  1864;  5000  in  1865.  Not  until  1871  did  this  state 
again  reach  80,000  tons ;  but  shortly  thereafter  a  more  prosper- 
ous period  set  in.  The  average  yield  from  1886  to  1891  was 
163,000  tons,  and  the  expansion  continued  until  the  greatest  pro- 
duction on  record  —  398,000  tons  —  was  reached  in  1904-1905. 
At  present  the  annual  yield  averages  between  200,000  and 
300,000  tons  for  Louisiana,  with  a  few  thousand  tons  for  all  other 
districts  in  the  United  States  proper.  Porto  Rico,  Hawaii,  and 
the   Philippines,   however,   produce  much  cane  sugar. 

Conditions  of  cane-sugar  production.  It  is  said  that  the  best 
climate  for  raising  sugar  cane  is  one  whose  average  temperature 


SUGAR 


87 


is  about  80°  F.  and  where  the  rainfall  is  sixty  inches  or  more 
a  year.  This  is  about  three  times  the  annual  rainfall  necessary 
for  successful  farming  of  cereal  and  vegetable  crops.  Sugar-cane 
culture  belongs  to  the  tropics  and  subtropics  and  can  never  be 
more  than  a  local  industry  in  this  country.  It  is  in  British  India, 
and  especially  in  the  two  islands  of  Java  and  Cuba,  that  its 
greatest  success  is  assured.  Cuba  produces  considerably  more 
than  half  of  the  whole  amount  for  the  continent  of  North  America. 


"-  !^ 


',,.^:i.''v''*i^iu«^ 


A    liEET-SUGAK    KACTUKV 


Beet  sugar.  Despite  the  fact  that  the  derivation  of  sugar 
from  the  beet  is  a  modern  achievement,  nearly  half  of  the  world's 
present  crop  of  commercial  sugar  is  thus  derived.  Not  until  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  did  the  industry  rise  into  any  promi- 
nence. J^ut  its  advent  has  wrought  far-reaching  changes  in  the 
whole  sugar  industry,  which  have  reacted,  in  turn,  upon  the 
economic  life  of  millions  of  people.  Only  a  short  time  ago 
sugar,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  luxury ;  to-day  it  is  a  staple  article 
of  consumption  in  most  parts  of  the  civilized  world  ;  and  it  is 
largely  the  expansion  of  sugar-producing  from  its  previous  tropical 
fields  that  has  allowed  this  change  to  come  about. 


88  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Sugar-beet  raising.  The  sugar  beet  is  a  variety  of  the  com- 
mon beet,  and  grows  best  in  the  cHmatic  environment  of  north 
temperate  latitudes ;  a  greater  weight  of  roots  per  acre  can  be 
raised  in  warmer  regions,  but  they  are  not  so  rich  in  sugar. 
As  regards  soil,  wherever  ordinary  farm  crops  —  wheat,  maize, 
or  potatoes  —  will  grow,  there  the  sugar  beet  will  get  on  if  the 
drainage  is  good. 

Beginnings  of  the  beet-sugar  industry.  Toward  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  shown,  in  Germany,  that  sugar 
could  be  obtained  from  beets.  The  first  Napoleon  did  much  to 
encourage  the  industry  in  France,  especially  in  1812,  when  the 
French  were  cut  off  by  blockade  from  a  cane-sugar  supply  ;  at  one 
time  he  caused  the  sum  of  a  million  francs  to  be  appropriated  to 
its  encouragement.  But  after  the  fall  of  the  emperor  production 
almost  died  out.  By  1820  it  was  reviving  agaiii,  and  has  since 
developed  swiftly  and  extensively,  until  it  is  very  large.  In  this 
country  experiments  began  as  early  as  1838,  one  David  Child, 
of  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  having  produced  1300  pounds 
of  sugar  in  that  year.  In  1863  the  Gennert  Brothers,  of  Chats- 
worth,  Illinois,  went  into  the  business  on  a  2400-acre  tract ;  they 
and  a  like  establishment  in  Freeport  consolidated  in  1870  and 
produced  in  that  year  200,000  pounds  of  sugar  at  moderate  cost. 
Other  experiments  w^ere  made  in  different  places,  and  finally, 
about  1890,  the  production  of  this  variety  of  sugar  was  firmly 
established  ;  up  to  that  year  only  three  factories  had  been  estab- 
lished in  the  country,  and  they  were  all  of  small  capacity. 

The  beet-sugar  crop.  Our  present  production  of  beet  sugar  is 
over  700,000  tons,  out  of  a  world's  total  commercial  production 
of  somewhat  less  than  10,000,000  tons.  Our  states  of  largest 
yield  are  Colorado,  California,  Michigan,  Utah,  and  Idaho.  As 
yet,  however,  Europe  has  a  great  preponderance  in  the  beet- 
sugar  industry;  European  countries  began  earlier,  and  their 
governments  have  helped  the  industry  by  granting  subsidies 
and  liberal  bounties. 


SUGAR 


89 


The  Manufacture  of  Sugar 

Manufacture  from  the  sugar  cane.  The  first  method  of  getting 
the  sweet  juice  from  the  cane  was  the  natural  one  of  chewing 
and  sucking ;  the  teeth  were  the  mill.  Then  came  the  hand  mill, 
which  had  two  rollers,  set  upright  and  about  an  inch  apart.  Such 
machines,  with  wooden  or  iron  rollers,  were  wasteful,  for  they 
extracted  only  about  25  to  40  per  cent  of  the  juice.  Later  on, 
steam  power 
was  intro- 
duced, the 
rollers  were 
increased  in 
number  and 
size,  and  fi- 
nally in  the 
modern  mill 
the  producer 
manages  to 
extract  80  to 
90  per  cent 

of  the  sweet  fluid.  This  is  an  unattractive-looking,  dark-greenish 
substance  with  a  pleasant  odor.  It  contains  impurities  in  the  form 
of  dirt,  pieces  of  the  plant,  and  various  other  foreign  matters  dis- 
solved in  the  juice,  all  of  which  must  be  removed.  The  older 
method  of  getting  the  sugar  out  was  known  as  the  "  open-kettle  " 
process,  for  the  juice  had  to  be  boiled.  It  was  treated  chemically 
also  in  some  of  the  processes,  which  helped  tS  bring  to  the  sur- 
face a  scum  that  could  be  taken  off.  The  sirup  was  finally  brought 
to  a  proper  condition  for  granulation,  which  was  a  critical  point  in 
the  procedure  ;  later  it  was  led  off  into  coolers  for  granulation  ; 
and  then  the  raw  sugar  had  to  be  refined. 

The  vacuum  pan.  Evaporation  in  open  pans  w-as  slow  and 
expensive.  The  most  important  improvement  in  turning  the  juice 
into  sugar  was  made  when  it  was  discovered  that  the  hot  vapor 


FILTER   PRESSES    IN   SUGAR   MANUFACTURE 


90 


IM)L:STRV  AM)   TRADE 


rising  from  a  vessel  of  boiling  cane-juice  could  be  used  to  evap- 
orate the  water  from  a  second  reccj)tacle.  Tlie  idea  was  put  into 
practice  as  early  as  1S30,  but  the  real  credit  of  the  invention  i)e- 
longs  to  Norbert  Rilleaux,  of  Louisiana.  After  much  expense 
and  labor  had  been  undergone  in  working  out  tlie  details  of  the 
invention,  Rilleaux's  apparatus  was  put  into  operation  in  1845, 

It  did  not  work  so  very 
well  at  first,  but  the  tests 
of  1846  proved  successful 
and  laid  the  foundation 
for  the  elaborate  system 
of  evaporation  now  in  use 
wherever  capital  and  intel- 
ligence have  combined  to 
carry  on  the  industry.  By 
the  middle  of  the  century 
there  were  multiple  evapo- 
rators, consisting  of  a  series 
of  pans,  by  the  use  of  which 
up  to  85  per  cent  of  the 
water  contained  in  the  liquor 
is  removed  by  steam. 

Additional  processes.  As 
early  as  1834  bone  black 
was  introduced  as  a  means 
of  clarifying  the  sirup,  and 
a  nearly  chemically  pure 
white  sugar  was  the  result ;  this  was  then  shaped  into  loaves  by 
the  use  of  molds.  Sugar  is  now  treated  with  lime,  phosphoric 
acid,  and  soda  for  removing  the  last  impurities,  and  is  bleached 
by  sulphur  dioxide.  It  is  evaporated  in  a  last  pan,  called  "strike 
pan,"  to  the  point  of  crystallization.  The  molasses  is  separated 
from  the  sugar  by  whirling  it  in  centrifugal  machines. 

Manufacture  from  the  sugar  beet.    The  beets  have  first  to  be 
thoroughly  cleaned ;   following  this  they  are  dried  and  weighed 


MIN<,I.1\(,    sL'GAR    WITH    FLUUJ    BEFORE 
WASHING 


SUGAR  91 

in  scales  which  automatically  dump  their  load  when  the  desired 
weight  is  reached.  The  roots  are  then  cut  up  for  removal  of  the 
juice ;  they  were  formerly  reduced  to  pulp  by  pressure,  but  the 
slicing  process  has  been  found  superior. 

The  removal  of  impurities.  The  juice  is  extracted  by  water 
contact,  which  causes  an  exchange  of  the  sugar  juice  within  the 
plant  for  the  water  cells  without.  Raw-beet  juice  cannot  be 
evaporated,  for  it  contains  certain  foreign  substances  which  cause 
it  to  become  thick  like  gelatin  if  subjected  to  heat.  These  im- 
purities are  removed  by  adding  milk  of  lime  to  the  juice,  which 
is  then  heated,  carbon  dioxide  being  passed  through  the  limed 
solution.  The  result  is  the  removal  of  most  of  the  impurities, 
though  certain  other  chemical  processes  also  must  be  employed 
before  the  standard  purity  is  attained.  The  evaporation  is  then 
accomplished  by  the  use  of  the  vacuum  pan.  The  process  of  sugar 
manufacture  is  very  complicated,  but  these  are  the  main  facts. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


COTTON 


Fibers.  The  agricultural  products  hitherto  described  have  been 
chiefly  food  products  ;  practically  all  of  them  have  been  produced 
to  be  taken  into  the  human  or  animal  body.  But  now  we  come 
to  a  product  whose  fiber  is  sought,  above  all,  as  a  material  for 
clothing.  It  represents  by  far  the  most  important  material  used 
by  man  as  a  body  covering. 

Conditions  of  cotton-raising.  Cotton,  except  for  one  variety, 
is  not  native  to  the  New  World,  but  the  early  discoverers  and 
explorers  found  the  Indians  cultivating  this  variety  from  New 
Mexico  to  Brazil,  north  and  south,  and  from  the  West  Indies  to 
Peru,  east  and  west.  The  plant  grows  in  widely  scattered  regions 
of  the  world,  between  the  latitudes  of  40°  north  and  30°  south. 
It  is  a  warm-climate  crop,  needing  plenty  of  sunshine,  copious 
rainfall  during  the  growing  season,  and,  for  the  best  yield,  a  soil 
containing  silty  clay.  If  the  pods  open  too  soon  it  is  bad  for 
the  crop ;  on  the  other  hand,  frosts  are  a  great  danger. 

Early  cotton-raising.  The  settlers  of  this  country  planted 
cotton  as  early  as  1621,  and  it  was  under  rather  careful  cultiva- 
tion in  South  Carolina  by  1666 ;  it  appeared  in  Maryland  gardens 
in  1739  and  was  tried  in  New  Jersey  shortly  before  the  Revolu- 
tion. Owing,  however,  to  the  difficulty  of  separating  the  cotton 
fiber  from  the  seed,  and  the  slowness  of  hand-manufacturing, 
there  was  little  demand  for  the  raw  product,  either  in  this  country 
or  abroad,  previous  to  the  Revolution. 

92 


COTTON 


93 


Importance  of  the  industry.  From  such  humble  beginnings 
has  risen  an  enormous  industry.  In  1790  our  cotton  production 
was  4000  bales ;  in  1850  it  was  nearly  2,300,000;  in  1890, 
over  8,500,000.  The  present  yield  fluctuates  around  15,000,000 
bales.  The  world-demand  for  cotton  has  grown  immensely  during 
the  last  century  and  a  half ;  it  has  come  to  replace  other  fibers 


0 


1915 

1914 

1913 

1912 

1911 

1910 

1900 

1890 

1880 

1870 

1860 

1850 

1840 

1830 

1820 

1810 

I8OOB 

1790  1 


10   11   12   13   14   15   16 


%mm 


^223 


Ma 


'^MM.'ml 


COTTON   PRODUCTION    IN   THE    UNITED   STATES   SINCE    1790  (IN    MILLIONS    OF 

500-POUND   BALES) 

After  diagram  in  Statistical  Atlas  of  the  United  States 


as  the  most  common  or  widely  used  textile  for  the  manufacture 
of  clothing.  It  is  a  characteristic  American  product,  just  as  spices 
are  characteristic  of  the  eastern  world  ;  we  raise,  in  an  average 
year,  about  three  fifths  of  the  world's  raw  cotton.  Cotton  has  been 
an  outstanding  factor  in  our  national  history  and  development : 
it  has  exerted  a  strong  influence  upon  our  political,  industrial,  and 
commercial  life  ;  it  has  had  a  most  important  bearing  upon  the 
labor  question  ;  it  has  affected  our  diplomatic  relations  with  other 
countries ;  and  it  has  been  for  decades  the  dominant  source  of 
our  purchasing  power  abroad. 


94 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


ELI   WHITNEY 


Conditions  favoring  the  industry.    What  brought  cotton  to  its 
dominant  position  was  a  combination  of  favoring  circumstances. 

In  England  cotton  was  for  a  long  time 
used  as  an  adulterant  for  linen,  but  it 
was  not  thought  that  cloth  could  be 
made  from  it  alone.  Then  came  the 
invention  of  machines  (improved  loom, 
water  frame,  spinning  jenny,  power 
loom,  steam  engine),  enabling  the  spin- 
ning and  weaving  of  cotton  to  be 
readily  accomplished.  And  at  length 
came  the  Whitney  cotton  gin,  which 
so  far  surpassed  all  previous  types  of 
gin  that  it  did  away  with  the  arduous 
labor  of  separating  the  cotton  fiber 
from  the  seed,  and  gave  cotton  at  once 
a  great  lead  over  other  fibers  in  utility  and  cheapness.  The  inven- 
tion was  made  by  Eli  Whitney,  of  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  in 
1792.  Furthermore, 
the  expansion  of  the 
country  toward  the 
southwest  was  favor- 
able to  the  advance  of 
cotton-raising ;  from 
the  original  centers  it 
extended  into  Ala- 
bama, Kentucky,  and 
Tennessee.  Then  the 
Louisiana  Purchase 
gave  us  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  and  other 
territory   beyond    the 

Mississippi,  and  the  state  of  Mississippi  began  to  develop 
rapidly.  Florida  was  annexed  in  1820,  and  Texas  acquired,  at 
length,  in   1845.    And  all  this  time  the  foreign  demand  was  on 


whitxey's  cottox  gin 


COTTON 


95 


the  steady  increase.    Such  facts  explain  in  large  part  the  rapidity 
and  extent  of  the  growth  of  cotton  culture. 

Effect  of  the  Civil  War.  The  Civil  War  practically  stopped 
production  for  four  years  ;  and  the  interest  of  the  outside  world 
in  cotton  was  so  great  as  almost  to  lead  to  European  intervention 
in  favor  of  the  South.  Production  was  attempted  in  the  North, 
but  the  climate  made  it  unsuccessful ;  the  plants  flourished  well 


COLORADO 


COTTON-PRODUCING   AREAS   OF  THE    UNITED   STATES 

After  map  in  Bulletin  S'o.  isi,  United  States  Bureau  of  the  Census 

enough,  but  the  bolls  containing  the  fiber  would  not  mature.  As 
soon  as  the  war  was  over  we  again  took  our  place  as  the  world's 
chief  producer  of  cotton  ;  a  production  of  nearly  4,500,000  bales, 
in  1859,  had  fallen  almost  to  zero,  and  then,  by  1869,  had  re- 
covered to  about  2,750,000;  but  the  output  had  gotten  back  to 
over  5,200,000  in  1879. 

Varieties  of  cotton.  The  so-called  "'  cotton  belt  "  of  our  country 
is  about  1450  miles  long,  from  east  to  west,  and  about  500  miles 
wide,  from  north  to  south,  and  includes  all  the  southeastern  states 
from  the  North  Carolina  coast  through  Texas.     Within  lliis  belt 


96 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


there  are  two  kinds  of  cotton  grown  :  the  "  sea-island  "  and  the 
"  American  upland,"  The  former  is  the  best  type,  from  the  stand- 
point of  trade,  to  be  found  in  the  world ;  its  fiber  is  longer  and 
finer  than  that  of  any  other  variety.  This  was  the  plant  native 
to  the  New  World,  and  therefore  the  one  known  to  the  Indians 
before  the  Discovery.  The  very  best  of  this  variety  is  grown  on 
the  sea  islands  along  the  coast  of  South  Carolina,  but  not  a  little 
of  it  is  found  on  the  mainland  of  Georgia  and  Florida.  Only  a 
little  —  under  100,000  bales  —  is  raised  ;  and  it  is  so  highly  prized 

that  a  large 
part  of  the 
crop  is  ex- 
ported. The 
upland  cot- 
ton is  the 
variety  most 
commonly 
grown  in 
this  coun- 
try, and  is 
thus  most 
largely  rep- 
resented in 
commerce  ; 
it  is  not  native,  but  is  supposed  to  have  been  brought  here  from 
Asia  through  Europe.  The  fiber  is  of  medium  length,  and  shorter 
and  coarser  than  that  of  sea-island. 

Nature  of  the  plant.  The  cotton  plant  is  cultivated  as  an 
annual ;  that  is,  the  seed  is  sown  every  year,  and  when  the  plant 
has  produced  its  full  yield  of  pods  it  is  destroyed.  It  is  a  low 
shrub,  that  develops  a  pod,  or  boll,  containing  the  seeds  (about  the 
size  of  small  peas)  and  a  quantity  of  "  lint,"  which  clings  tightly 
to  the  seeds,  the  whole  bursting,  at  maturity,  out  of  the  boll.  The 
fiber  is  from  half  an  inch  to  two  and  a  half  inches  in  length, 
and   it  takes  about  seventy-five  medium-sized   bolls  to  make  a 


A  COTTON-PICKIXG   MACHINE 


COTTON 


97 


pound  of  raw  cotton.  The  fiber  is  of  such  construction  that  its 
strands  cHng  together  and  do  not  sHp  on  one  another ;  this 
enables  them  to  be  twisted  into  thread,  and  finally  woven  into 
cloth,  even  though  they  are  short. 

Harvesting.   The  harvesting  of  the  crop  has  been  done  up  to  the 
present  time  almost  wholly  by  hand  ;    the  cotton-picking  season 


COTTON   OINS    IN   AN    UP-TO-DATF,    COTTON    MILL 


was  one  of  the  busiest  times  under  the  old  slave  system,  and  it  is 
still  a  period  that  calls  for  much  hand  labor.  The  bolls  do  not 
all  ripen  at  the  same  time,  and  a  machine  that  will  pick  off  the 
ripe  bolls  may  so  injure  the  plant  that  the  unripe  ones  may  not 
mature  properly.  Cotton  is  usually  picked  four  times  a  season, 
the  largest  yield  coming  from  the  second  picking,  and  the  small- 
est from  the  last.  Though  cotton-picking  is  unskilled  labor,  and 
cheap,  yet  this  item  is  the  costliest  in  cotton  production.  An 
average  day's  work   for  one  person  would  be  the  picking  of  a 


98 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


hundred  pounds ;    it  would  thus   take  three   milhon   people   two 
months  to  gather  a  big  crop. 

Preparation  for  the  market.  Nothing  can  be  done  with  the 
fiber  until  it  is  separated  from  the  seeds.  Here  is  where  its  manu- 
facture really  begins.  Superseding  hand  labor  here,  the  cotton 
gin  rapidly  and  efficiently  combs  out  the  seeds  ;    then  the  fiber 

is  worked  out  into  sheets, 
and  in  that  form  goes  to 
the  press.  The  seed  was 
at  first  thrown  away,  but, 
as  will  presently  be  seen, 
it  is  now  a  valuable  by- 
product. The  bales  were 
formerly  made  by  tramp- 
ling the  fibers  in  a  box ; 
but  machinery  now  bales 
the  cotton  much  more 
compactly,  bagging  it  and 
inclosing  it  in  iron  bands 
without  human  assistance. 
The  bales  w^eigh  about  five 
hundred  pounds  apiece. 

Localities  of  cotton- 
manufacture.  The  indus- 
try calls  for  advancing 
transportation  facilities, 
for  the  bales  must  be  carried  to  the  factories.  And  the  chief 
factory  region  is  still  in  New  England  ;  only  recently  has  Southern 
cotton-manufacturing  made  a  serious  bid  for  first  place.  New 
England  has  possessed  certain  local  advantages  for  manufacture  : 
water  supply,  nearness  to  materials  and  fuel,  nearness  to  markets, 
favorable  climate,  a  good  supply  of  efficient  labor,  plenty  of  capital, 
and,  of  course,  the  momentum  of  an  early  start.  Massachusetts  is 
still  the  leading  cotton-manufacturing  state,  but  in  recent  years 
North  Carolina  has  come  to  occupy  second  place. 


SIMXNIXG    COTTON    IN   THE    OLDEN   DAYS 


COTTON 


99 


Spinning.  The  immediate  product  of  the  cotton  fiber  is  thread, 
and  the  thread  has  to  be  spun.  This  was  a  famihar  process  in 
very  ancient  times,  and  consisted,  at  the  outset,  of  merely  rolhng 
the  fibers  by  hand  ;  then  the  spindle,  a  sort  of  top-like  instrument, 
was  invented.  Much  more  modern  is  the  spinning  wheel,  of  which 
examples  may  be  seen  in  any  collection  of  colonial  instruments. 
This  wheel  was  used  chiefly 
for  wool  and  flax,  but  it  is 
an  important  link  in  the 
chain  leading  to  all  modern 
spinning  and  weaving  de- 
vices. Then  came  the  spin- 
ning jenny,  which  enabled 
a  number  of  threads  to  be 
spun  by  one  operator  at  the 
same  time  ;  and  the  water 
frame  (so  called  because  run 
by  water  power)  and  the  mule, 
by  which  stronger  threads 
could  be  spun  and  the 
process  otherwise  improved. 
The  detailed  description 
of  these  various  inventions 
can  be  found  in  standard 
encyclopedias.  To-day  the 
spinning  mule  has  more 
than  a  thousand  spindles,  all  of  which  are  operated  by  one  person. 

Weaving.  Jkit  the  threads  are  of  comparatively  little  avail  until 
they  are  woven  into  a  fabric.  Weaving  has  been  long  known 
among  even  the  most  backward  peoples,  who  made  baskets  by 
interlacing  reeds  or  withes  ;  then  fiber  threads  were  employed 
and  a  loose-textured  cloth  manufactured.  The  instrument  here 
employed  was  the  loom,  in  combination  with  the  shuttle.  Threads 
were  hung  from  a  cross-piece  of  wood,  or  a  branch,  and  other 
threads  passed  over  and  under  them,  as  in  the  stringing  of  a  tennis 


A    MODKRN    SI'INNING    MACHINK 


100 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


racket ;  the  shuttle  carried  the  end  of  the  cross-thread.  These 
instruments  are  the  basis  of  modern  weaving  machines ;  first  came 
the  apphcation  of  foot  power,  and  then  the  power  loom,  patented 
in  1785,  It  is  impossible  in  a  book  of  this  kind  to  give  even  an 
approximate  notion  of  the  working  of  these  more  complicated 
inventions  —  again  we  refer  to  the  standard  encyclopedias. 


AN    OLn-FASHIONED   LOOM 

The  factory  system.  Now  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  earlier 
spindles  and  looms  were  used  in  the  home,  but  the  developed 
machines,  costly  as  they  were,  demanded  not  only  more  room  than 
the  cottage  could  spare  but  also  much  capital.  They  naturally 
led  to  the  development  of  factory  industry  to  replace  that  of  the 
home.  With  these  inventions  fewer  workers  could  turn  out  a  much 
larger  product  in  a  much  shorter  time,  and  the  result  was  a  great 
wave  of  misery  for  people  who  had  hitherto  gotten  along  pretty 
well  by  the  work  of  their  hands.  Many  such  cottage  workmen 
could  not  live  in  the  old    countries    under   the  new  conditions, 


COTTON 


lOi 


and  this  was   one  of  the   reasons   for  the  immigration  of  such 
a  fine  and   industrious   element  of   population   into  the  United 

States.  The 
period  is  that 
of  the  Indus- 
trial Revolu- 
tion, brought 
about  chiefly 
by  the  inven- 


THK     INTERMEDIATE     ROVING     FRAME,     WHERE     SPINDLES 
TAKE  OFF,  DOUBLE,  AND  TWIST  AGAIN  THE  ROLL,  OR  ROPE 


tions,  which 
we  have  al- 
ready told  of, 
in  the  textile 
manufacture. 
Merceriz- 
ing. Several 
other  impor- 
tant processes  of  great  moment  are  also  connected  with  the  manu- 
facture of  cloth ;  for  example,  mercerizing.  This  process,  as 
applied  to  cotton,  consists  in  treating  the  yarns  or  woven  goods 
with  caustic  soda  and  sulphuric  acid,  the  result  being  to  give  the 
surface  of 
the  material 
a  smoother 
finish  and 
also  a  luster 
like  that  of 
silk.  The 
process  suc- 
ceeds best 
with  sea- 
island  fiber, 
since  this 
is  naturally 
somewhat  beaming  the  wari*  to  he  washed  and  dvi:d 


I02  INOrSTRV  AND  TRADE 

silky.    Of  course  if  cotton  can  be  made  to  look  like  silk,  it  is  a 
more  valuable   fabric ;  it  can   be  used  also  to  adulterate   silk. 

Dyeing  and  finishing.  The  dyeing  and  finishing  of  cotton 
goods  is  also  very  important ;  more  than  half  of  the  cottons 
woven  in  this  country  are  colored,  by  dyeing  or  printing,  before 
they  are  used.  Some  of  the  commonest  modern  dyes  are  prod- 
ucts of  coal  tar,  a  thick,  dark  liquid  that  gathers  in  gas  pipes 
when  the  gas  is  being  taken  from  the  coal ;  from  it  some  most 
remarkable  results  have  been  reached  in  the  production  of  dyes 
of  several  colors.  The  dyeing  is  done  sometimes  before  the 
spinning  takes  place  and  sometimes  after  the  weaving  is  done  ; 
to  make  it  permanent  a  mordant,  or  "  biter,"  is  used  to  fix,  or 
"bite  in,"  the  color.  Such  a  material  is  alum.  In  general  the 
vegetable  dyes  are  less  likely  to  fade  than  the  mineral  ones. 

Cottonseed 

Uses  of  the  seed.  When  the  cottonseed,  once  separated  from 
the  fiber,  ceased  simply  to  be  thrown  away,  it  was  employed  to 
some  extent  as  fertilizer  ;  but  all  this  is  now  changed,  for  the 
seed  has  been  discovered  to  have  many  uses  formerly  unknown. 
For  example,  it  yields  a  valuable  oil.  The  Chinese  knew  this  a 
long  time  ago  and  used  the  oil  for  illuminating  purposes.  In  the 
western  world  it  was  the  Englisli  who  first  made  oil  from  cotton- 
seed, and  in  this  country  the  industry  dates  from  about  1870. 

Treatment  of  the  seed.  The  seed  is  first  ginned  over  again 
to  take  off  the  fuzz,  or  "linters,"  still  sticking  to  the  seed  ;  then 
the  hulls  are  removed  and  the  seed  crushed  under  heavy  pressure. 
The  oil  is  used  in  cookery,  in  soap-making,  and  to  mix  with 
other  oils.  And  this  is  not  all  that  is  gotten  from  the  seed.  The 
cake  left  after  pressing  is  dried  and  pulverized,  forming  cotton- 
seed meal,  which  is  used  to  feed  stock  and  also  as  fertilizer. 
Cottonseed  meal  constitutes  almost  as  great  a  value  in  this  coun- 
try as  the  oil.  Even  the  husks  of  the  seed  are  useful ;  formerly 
they  were  burned  and  the  ashes  used  as  fertilizer,  but  now  they 
are  mixed  with  the  meal  to  make  stock  feed. 


'  Batting 
Wadding 

ct..ffi t^^„\  f„,  /Pads,  cushions,  comforts,  horse  collars, 

Stuffing  material  for  I     mattresses,  upholstery 
Absorbent  cotton 
Mixing  with  shoddy 
LiNTERS"\  Mixing  with  wool  in  hat-making 

Mixing  with  lamb"s  wool  for  fleece-lined  underwear 

Felt 

Low-grade  yams  —  Lampwicks  and  candlewicks,  twine,  rope,  carpets 

f  Smokeless  powder         ^Coating  for  metals 
'Varnishes <  Artificial  leather 
l^  Waterproofing 


■Cellulose 


(^  Pyroxylin 


Writing  paper  ^ 
Guncotton,   nitrocellulose, 
or  pyrocellulose 
-  Feed 
Fertilizer 
Fuel  ' 
Packing 
Hulls  "i  Household  utensils 
Bran  —  Cattle  feed 

{Stuffing  for  horse  collars 
Basis  for  explosives 
Cellulose  —  Used  same  as  under  Linters 
Paper  stock  —  Pressed-paper  products 
'  Fertilizer 
Dyestuffs 

r  Cattle 
I  Poultry' 
'Cake  and  Meal-J  Feed  for-^  Horses  and  mules 
Swine  ^ 
L Sheep 
(  Bread 
^  Flour  '  ^  Cake 

I^Cracker 

'  Cosmetics 


r  Celluloid 

Collodion 
Plastics  <  Varnishes 

Artificial  silk 
[^Photographic  films 


Meats-. 


Crude 


r  Animal  compound  lard 
Bleached  or  deodorized  oil  -i  Cooking  oil 

|_  Salad  oil 
Hydrogen- /Lard  substitutes 
ated  oil    \Synthetic  stearin— Vegetable  compound  lard 


Prime  summer^  f  Salad  oil 

yellow  oil       ]  rWinter  oil  J  ^'^"'"8  o''\es 

w  mter  on  <  p^^^-^^^^  sardines 

Cold  pressed  oil  -^  [^Winter  white  oil 

'Refined]  (^Stearin-  Oleomargarine 

oil       1  Emulsion  for  medical  purposes 

I  Substitute  for  sweet  oil 
(^  Deodorized  oil 

Off-grade  sum-f'^^in'^rs'  oil 

,    ™"y^"°^°''lHi^rogenated  oil  —  S>'nthetic  stearin  — Soap 
Putty 

f  Washing 

I      powder    ['Glycerin  —  Nitroglycerin 

1  Acidulated 
P'oots-;      foots  or 
black 
grease 

.Soap 


'Candle 
pitch 


acids 


Stearic  acid  — 

Candles 
Washing  powder 
Soap 


'  Roofing /Composition 
tar      \     roofing 


linoleums 
Distilled  Insulating  materials 

fat       ■!  Stearin    pitch   or  J  Oilcloth 
acids  cotton-oil  pitch]  Waterproofing 

Cheap-paint  base 
Cotton  rubber 


Artificial/ 1  ■pholstcring 
lcather\  Bookbinding 


PRODUCTS  AND    USKS   OF   COT'IONSF-ED 


^  Possible  uses  to  which  small  (luanlities  only  arc  dcvolcd. 
103 


104 


INin-STRY  AND  TRADE 


By-products.  In  all  industries  there  is  much  waste  at  the 
outset.  It  is  not  then  seen  to  be  waste,  because  there  is  no 
known  use  for  what  is  discarded.  But  as  time  goes  on  and  the 
competition  of  industries  becomes  keener,  the  processes  are 
studied  more  and  more  minutely  and  every  effort  is  made  to 
save ;  for  the  saving  of  apparently  useless  materials  often  makes 
the  difference  between  the  successful  plant  and  the  one  which  goes 


PICKING   AND   LOADING   COTTON 


under.  We  reproduce  on  page  103,  from  a  recent  Ccjisns  Bulletin, 
a  chart  of  the  products  and  uses  of  cottonseed,  to  give  the  reader 
some  idea  of  the  saving  that  has  been  accomplished  from  what  was 
once  a  waste  product — in  fact,  a  public  nuisance,  for  the  rotting  seed, 
forming  as  it  did  a  mass  of  decaying  matter,  was  sometimes  that. 
The  cotton  cities.  All  of  our  great  industries,  including  cotton 
culture,  have  contributed  strongly  to  the  development  of  cities  and 
transportation  interests  ;  as  Chicago  centers  upon  the  grain  busi- 
ness and  Pittsburgh  on  steel  and  iron,  so  have  Charleston, 
Savannah,  Galveston,  Vicksburg,  and  Memphis  centered  upon 
the  cotton  industry.  This  industry  has  practically  made  these 
Southern  towns,  as  the  other  industries  mentioned  have  made 
the  Northern  ones,  and  it  has  done  this  very  largely  by  forcing 
a  development  of  transportation. 


PART  III.    ANIMAL   INDUSTRIES 


CHAPTER  IX 


CATTLE 


Killing  the  animals.  Domestic  animals  represent  one  of  the 
great  conquests  of  man  over  nature.  When  all  animals  were  wild, 
they  meant  to  man  only  what  they  meant  to  one  another  —  a 
source  of  danger,  a  source  of  food,  or  a  competition  for  food 
that  both  parties  wanted.  In  any  case  the  animals  represented  an 
unfriendly,  when  it  was  not  a  hostile,  element  in  man's  environ- 
ment. A  large  part  of  man's  activity  has  been  expended  in  killing 
the  animals  —  sometimes  simply  for  his  own  comfort  in  being 
rid  of  them,  as  in  the  case  of  the  lion  or  the  mosquito,  and  again 
for  the  sake  of  feeding  on  their  bodies.  That  he  has  been  very 
successful  in  this  enterprise  is  a  matter  of  general  knowledge, 
though  there  are  still  certain  minute  living  things  that  he  cannot 
yet  eradicate,  such  as  the  microscopic  germs  of  disease. 

Domestication,  liut  man  did  not  confine  himself  to  utilization 
of  the  dead  bodies  of  the  animals ;  he  learned,  after  a  while,  to 
capture  them  alive  and  to  tame  them.  Then  they  bred  in  cap- 
tivity, and  he  surrounded  himself  with  numbers  of  them  which 
he  had  domesticated  and  upon  which  he  could  rely  for  a  constant 
supply  of  food.  This  domestication  of  animals  was  one  of  the 
greatest  of  human  exploits,  for  it  made  life  much  less  subject 
to  chance ;   food-getting  in   the    hunt   was   always   more   or   less 

105 


io6  INDUSTRY  AND    IRADE 

precarious,  but  now  man  could  get  from  his  animals  not  only  food 
but  articles  for  clothing  and  shelter.  And  he  learned,  besides,  to 
employ  the  special  qualities  of  his  animals  —  the  scent  of  the 
dog,  the  strength  of  the  ox,  the  swiftness  of  the  horse  —  to  assist 
him  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Possessing  them,  he  became 
really  as  keen  as  the  dog,  as  strong  as  the  ox,  as  swift  as  the 
horse ;  he  appropriated  their  qualities  to  himself  and  lived  his 
life  the  more  safely  and  successfully  thereby. 

Breeding.  And  as  he  bred  his  beasts  he  selected  for  preser- 
vation those  which  he  most  valued.  These  were  the  ones  which 
produced  the  next  generation,  and  that  next  generation  kept  and 
even  increased  through  inheritance  the  desirable  qualities  of  the 
parents.  Man  became  able  to  mold  by  his  action  the  qualities 
of  his  domestic  animals ;  he  bred  them  for  the  things  which  he 
wanted  of  them,  and  animal-breeding  became  a  science  and  an 
art  that  produced  the  most  astonishing  results  in  adapting  the 
animals  to  man's  purposes.  Some  of  the  domestic  animals  have 
been  bred,  in  the  course  of  ages,  to  be  so  different  from  the  wild 
stock  from  which  they  came  that  we  cannot  be  sure  as  to  just 
what  that  stock  was.  The  same  is  true,  of  course,  in  regard  to 
domesticated  plants,  but  it  is  more  striking,  perhaps,  in  the  case 
of  animals ;  for,  though  animals  were  more  plainly  hostile  to 
man,  yet  they  have  been  pulled  over,  as  it  were,  from  the  ranks 
of  his  enemies  to  fight  on  his  side  in  the  battle  of  life. 

Wealth  in  domesticated  animals.  The  wealth  of  a  country  in 
these  days,  long  after  the  beginnings  which  we  have  sketched, 
lies  in  good  part  in  its  domestic  animals.  They  still  furnish  the 
materials  for  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  and  they  have  not  ceased 
to  be  useful  in  assisting  man  in  his  labors.  In  our  modern  civili- 
zation the  most  important  domestic  animals  are  cattle,  horses, 
sheep,  swine,  and  goats.  These  were  all  domesticated  ages  ago, 
and  the  form  in  which  we  know  them  is,  as  we  have  said,  quite 
altered  from  that  shown  by  their  ancestors  when  first  they  became 
attached  to  man's  service.  In  a  very  real  sense  they  have  been 
made  what  man  ranked  them  to  be. 


CATTLE  107 

Origin  of  the  best  breeds.  It  takes  a  high  civihzation  to  produce 
a  highly  bred  domestic  animal  ;  savages  have  not  the  knowledge, 
skill,  or  means  for  producing  and  holding  a  special  and  superior 
breed.  To  keep  up  a  good  breed,  it  is  necessary  to  prevent  it 
from  crossing  with  inferior  or  wild  stocks  ;  there  must  be  in- 
closures,  which  the  savage  seldom  has.  Hence  the  best  domestic 
breeds  have  come  from  regions  of  old  and  advanced  civilization  ; 
that  is,  from  the  Old  World,  and  chiefly  from  those  parts  of  it 
where  human  civilization  began  —  namely,  in  southern  Asia, 
southeastern  Europe,  and  northeastern  Africa.  This  explains  in 
part  why  the  Americas  have  contributed  no  important  domestic 
animal  to  the  world. 

Few  American  breeds.  But  America  seems  also  to  have  been 
singularly  lacking  in  animals  suitable  for  domestication.  The 
Indians  domesticated  the  llama  and  alpaca,  but  these  were  never 
of  more  than  local  importance.  The  bison  was  not  domesticated  ; 
probably  the  hunting  was  so  plentiful  that  there  was  no  stimulus 
toward  domestication.  But  when  the  Old  World  animals  were 
once  introduced,  they  were  found  to  be  well  adapted  to  our 
climate,  vegetation,  and  environment  in  general ;  the  horse,  for 
example,  originally  brought  by  the  Spanish,  ran  wild  in  great 
herds  over  the  Western  plains.  At  the  present  time  the  United 
States  form  one  of  three  main  sources  of  supply  for  animal  food- 
products,  the  other  two  being  Argentina  and  Australasia. 

Cattle 

The  beginnings  of  American  cattle-raising.  Bulls  and  cows 
were  first  brought  to  America  by  Columbus  in  1493  ;  the  Spanish 
breeds  were  introduced  into  Mexico  about  1525  and  form  the 
basis  of  the  Texan  stock.  From  these  were  probably  derived  the 
cattle  possessed  by  the  Indians  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Portuguese  cattle  were  introduced  into  Newfoundland 
in  1553,  and  the  French  brought  Norman  cattle  into  Canada  a 
little  later  on.    The  various  colonists  from  the  northern  iuir()]:)ean 


I  OS  INDUSTRY  AND    I'RADK 

countries  introduced  tlieir  own  breeds,  l-roni  these  various  stocks 
descended  the  great  numbers  of  cattle  found  later  in  the  United 
States.  In  the  early  days,  and  for  a  long  period,  cattle  were 
valued  chiefly  for  their  hides,  and  breeding  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  stock  pure  was  not  much  attended  to  until  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  Oxen  were  used  for  heavy  labors,  for  in 
colonial  days  horses  were  far  too  costly  for  farm  work.  One  or 
two  cows  were  kept  for  their  dairy  products,  which  were  chiefly 
for  home  use,  though  if  there  was  a  surplus  it  could  be  disposed 
of  at  the  village  store. 

The  demand  for  meat.  It  was  with  the  concentration  of  popu- 
lation in  towns  and  cities  that  there  developed  a  demand  for 
cattle  as  a  meat  supply.  In  New  York,  in  1678,  we  are  told,  the 
average  number  slaughtered  yearly  was  four  hundred,  and  in 
1694,  four  thousand.  In  1680  the  price  of  beef  was  about  two 
and  a  half  pence  a  pound. 

Neglect  of  cattle.  For  the  first  half-century  of  our  colonial 
period  the  cattle,  especially  in  the  winter,  were  much  neglected ; 
shelter  was  not  provided,  or,  if  it  was,  it  afforded  little  protection. 
Cows  were  not  milked  in  the  winter,  for  there  was  a  prevalent 
belief  that  winter-milking  would  kill  them.  Little  or  no  food  was 
stored  for  cattle  ;  even  in  winter  they  browsed  on  what  they  could 
find  in  the  fields  and  along  the  roads.  Naturally  they  became 
very  thin  and  poor  in  the  cold  season,  and  many  of  them  died 
of  hunger  and  exposure.  In  general,  they  were  much  smaller 
than  our  present  stock.  The  horses  were  worked  hard  and  under- 
fed ;  after  a  heavy  day's  work  they  were  simply  turned  into  poor 
pasture,  and  the  same  sort  of  neglect  was  the  portion  of  the 
sheep  and  swine. 

Westward  movement  of  the  industry.  Cattle-raising  is  a  busi- 
ness characteristic  of  frontiers,  and  as  the  frontier  in  this  country 
moved  westward,  the  cattle  industry  moved  with  it.  At  the  same 
time  the  growth  of  population  in  the  East  created  a  demand  for 
meat  products ;  the  first  fattened  or  stall-fed  cattle  that  ever 
crossed  the  Alleghenies  journeyed   on   the  hoof   from  Ohio   to 


CATTLE 


109 


Baltimore  in  the  spring  of  1805.  This  was  the  only  way  to  get 
cattle  from  the  frontier  over  the  mountains  to  the  region  of 
demand.  Beginning  early  in  the  century,  then,  there  developed 
a  profitable  industry  in  the  fattening  of  cattle  on  corn  during  the 
winter,  the  animals  being  driven  to  the  East  when  the  spring 
came.  Ohio  and  its  neighboring  states  first  developed  this  enter- 
prise.   Then,  early  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  century,  there 


DISTKIBUTIOX   OF  CATTI.E  (OTHRR  THAN    MILCH   COWS)  BY  STATES  (NUMBERS 

IN   THOUSANDS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 

arose  an  interest  in  improving  the  breeds  of  live  stock  ;  the  ex- 
hibits of  cattle  at  county  fairs  stimulated  an  interest  in  this 
matter.  The  industry  began  to  take  on  a  modern  tinge  and  to 
show  its  possibilities  ;  improvement  brought  prosperity  and  profits, 
and  success  stimulated  to  further  improvement. 

The  cattle  states.  The  industry  continued  to  follow  the  frontier. 
As  late  as  1850  the  states  having  the  greatest  number  of  cattle 
lay,  with  one  exception  (Ohio),  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  ;  the 
states  having  over  one  million  cattle  were,  in  order,  New  York, 
Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Georgia,  and  Florida.    Fifty  years  later  there 


no 


INDLSIRV   AM)    I'RADE 


were  eighteen  states  and  territories  which  had  at  least  a  miihon 
cattle  each,  but  by  this  time  the  great  cattle  states  were  in  the 
West,  with  Texas,  Iowa,  Kansas,  and  Nebraska  in  the  lead.  The 
Eastern  states,  which  had  formerly  contained  extensive  areas  suit- 
able for  grazing,  had  been  filling  up  with  population,  and  these 
sections  became  too  valuable  for  the  former  purpose.  Then,  also, 
grazing  on  the  large  scale  called  for  even  more  extensive  areas 


KOUXD-UP'     ON   A   WESTERN   RAN'CH 


of  pasture.  The  very  best  environment  for  stock-raising  on  the 
large  scale  is,  for  this  country,  the  High  Plains  region,  just  east 
of  the  foothills  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Not  only  are  the  choicest 
grazing  grounds  here,  but  because  of  deficiency  of  rainfall  for 
farming  the  agriculturist  puts  up  but  small  competition  ;  rainfall 
insufficient  for  farming,  however,  may  be  quite  adequate  for  grazing. 
Cowboys  and  farmers.  In  recent  years  the  development  of 
irrigation  in  the  semi-arid  regions  of  the  West  is  making  some 
impression  on  the  cattle-raising  industry.  The  encroachment  of 
the  farmer  has  often  resulted  in  a  hot  set-to  between  him  and 


CATTLE 


III 


the  cowboy  —  between  the  "fence  men"  and  the  "no-fence 
men."  The  cowboys  resented  anything,  hke  a  fence,  that  might 
Hmit  freedom  of  motion  and  of  utihzation  of  pasture  ;  and  they 
used  to  cut  the  wire  fences  and  otherwise  hamper  the  farmer  in 
his  business.  It  is  the  old  fact  again  that  as  soon  as  an  area 
ceases  to  be  frontier,  with  characteristic  frontier  conditions,  then 
it  is  no  longer  suitable  for  a  frontier  occupation,  such  as  grazing. 


iJISTKIlil'TIoX    OF    .MIIXH    COWS    15Y   STATES   (NUMUEKS    IN   THOUSANDS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 

However,  from  some  of  these  regions  where  irrigation  and  plant- 
ing are  in  vogue  beef  is  still  shipped  out  in  large  quantities  ;  this 
beef  production  is  due  in  good  part  to  the  alfalfa,  an  immigrant 
crop  well  suited  to  dry  regions,  several  harvests  of  which  can  be 
cut  in  a  season.  During  the  winter  months,  and  in  periods  of 
great  drought,  alfalfa  is  the  staple  food  of  the  cattle. 

Progress  of  the  industry.  The  development  of  cattle-raising  in 
this  country  has  shown  rapid  progress  in  the  last  half-century. 
Of  all  our  domestic  animals  cattle  form  the  largest  item  ;  but 
their  value  is  considerably  less  than  that  of  the  crops  raised  on 
our  farms.    In  a  recent  year  the  states  having  the  greatest  number 


112 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


of  milch  cows  were  Wisconsin,  New  York,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota ; 
those  having  the  largest  number  of  other  cattle  were  Texas,  Iowa, 
Nebraska,  and  Kansas.  Many  of  the  states  in  the  High  Plains 
region  have  great  numbers  of  cattle  other  than  milch  cows.  The 
latter  are  conspicuous  by  their  absence,  because  these  states  are 
far  remote  from  the  great  milk-consuming  centers  of  population. 
Refrigeration.  The  marketing  of  fresh  beef  in  places  remote 
from  the  locations  of  raising  and  slaughtering  the  animals,  to  say 


ICING    REFRIGERATOR   CARS 


nothing  of  an  export  trade  in  this  commodity,  has  had,  in  its 
development,  a  strong  bearing  upon  our  cattle-raising  industry. 
These  enterprises  were  possible  only  with  the  progress  of  re- 
frigeration, which  has  been  practiced  since  about  1875.  The  early 
refrigerator  car  was  an  adaptation  of  the  freight  car  ;  double  floors, 
roofs,  and  sides  were  provided,  and  the  intervening  spaces  were 
packed  with  sawdust.  The  car  had  a  large  ice-box,  the  water 
from  which,  as  from  a  common  refrigerator,  dripped  out  through 
a  hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  car.  The  first  shipment  of  refriger- 
ated fresh  beef  forwarded  under  such  conditions  was  made  from 


CATTLE  1 1 3 

Chicago  to  Jersey  City  in  the  seventies.  Naturally  the  sale  of 
beef  in  distant  markets  greatly  stimulated  the  production  of  cattle 
raised  for  meat. 

Export  of  fresh  beef.  Then  came  the  export  of  fresh  beef 
across  the  ocean.  In  1875  a  New  York  merchant  shipped  a  few 
carcasses  to  Liverpool  by  steamer,  the  meat  being  kept  cool  by 
hand-operated  fans.  The  project  was  successful  and  was  repeated 
later  in  that  year  on  a  larger  scale,  the  fans  being  operated  by 
steam  ;  and  presently  the  shipments,  while  still  very  small  as 
compared  with  later  ones,  had  increased  markedly  in  amount. 
Since  these  beginnings  the  industry  has  steadily  progressed, 
and  improved  methods  have  been  introduced  to  keep  the  meat 
in  good  condition.  An  idea  of  the  sudden  growth  of  the  industry 
can  be  gained  from  the  fact  that  while  in  October,  1875,  our 
exports  of  fresh  beef  totaled  only  a  few  thousand  pounds,  for 
March,  1877,  they  amounted  to  over  6,700,000  pounds,  and  for 
the  whole  year  1877  they  exceeded  over  55,000,000  pounds. 

Export  of  live  stock.  About  the  time  that  fresh  beef  began  to 
be  exported  there  commenced  also  the  foreign  shipment  of  live 
stock.  This  industry  continues  to-day  on  a  large  scale,  for  British 
and  other  European  importers  prefer  to  slaughter  the  animals 
themselves  where  practicable.  Accordingly  we  find  numerous 
steamers  leaving  our  coastal  cities  loaded  with  live  stock  destined 
mainly  for  Great  Britain.  It  is  rather  more  expensive  to  ship  the 
cattle  alive  than  to  send  the  beef,  for  some  cattle  die  on  the  way, 
others  fall  off  in  weight,  and  all  of  them  have  to  be  fed  during 
progress  to  the  coast  and  on  the  voyage. 

Meat  packing.  A  further  powerful  stimulus  to  cattle-raising 
has  been  the  tremendous  expansion  of  the  meat-packing  industry. 
Time  was  when  thousands  of  cattle  were  slaughtered  each  year 
for  their  hides,  tallow,  and  horns,  their  fiesh  being  discarded  be- 
cause there  was  no  method  of  preserving  the  meat  except  by 
drying,  or  "jerking."  About  1880  was  perfected  the  process  of 
hermetically  sealing  meat  in  tin  cans,  which  enabled  it  to  be  kept 
for  a  long   period.    Then  arose   great  packing   plants   in   places 


TT4 


INDUS  I' RV   AND   TRADK 


wlicrc  cattle  were  fattened  and  slaughtered.    The  earlier  packing 
plants  were  in  Chicago  and  Cincinnati,  but  later  Omaha,  Kansas 

City,andother 
centers  devel- 
oped and  be- 
came impor- 
tant. In  con- 
nection with 
meat-packing, 
what  we  have 
said  in  regard 
to  cottonseed 
A  STAGE  i\  MILK  DisTRiiiuTioN  manufacturc 

The  milk  has  been  shipped  from  the  country  to  the  city  in  refrigerator      ShOUlu  DC    re- 
cars,  and  this  team  hauls  it  to  the  distributing  points  in  the  city  railed       With 

cattle  also  we  find  the  development  of  processes  for  utilizing  every 
scrap  of  useful  material  in  the  animal  carcasses,  and  also  the 
combination  of  a  number 
of  contributory  industries 
around    a    main    plant. 

Dairy  Products 

Development  of  the  dairy- 
industry.  The  production 
of  milk  for  food  is  an  im- 
portant branch  of  the  cattle 
industry.  We  have  seen 
that  the  colonial  farmers 
generally  kept  cows,  and 
that  their  butter  and  cheese 
were  homemade.  But  as 
population  increased,  the 
villages  had  to  be  supplied  by  neighboring  farmers  who  peddled 
the  milk  every  day ;  and  the  business  has  grown  and  developed 


FILLING    CREAM     l;()TTI.i:s    1;V    HAND 


SOURCES   OV   TIIK    MII.K    SriM'I.Y   OF    NEW    YORK    CITY 


"5 


ii6 


IXDl'STRV   AND   TRADK 


as  city  populations  have  had  to  be  suppHed  from  the  surrounding 
country.  The  map  will  give  some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  a 
big  city  is  always  drawing  upon  the  country.  Also  the  means  of 
transportation  has  altered  ;  the  small  milk  wagon  has  given  way 
to  the  automobile  and  to  the  milk  trains  which  daily  rush,  in  the 
early  morning  hours,  into  the  large  cities. 

Modern  sanitary  methods.    And  the  dairy  industry  has  been 
much  complicated  by  the  modern  demands  for  cleanliness  and 


BOTTLING   MILK   IN   A    SANITARY    DAIRY 

sanitation.  Milk  easily  becomes  impure  and  soon  spoils,  so  that 
neatness  and  speed  are  essential  if  there  is  to  be  no  disease  com- 
ing from  the  milk  supply.  In  the  best  of  modern  dairies  the 
cows  are  milked  by  machinery,  the  attendants  are  dressed  as  care- 
fully as  surgical  nurses,  and  the  milk  is  pasteurized.  Inspection 
by  municipal  authorities  is  frequent,  and  unsanitary  establishments 
are  speedily  put  out  of  business.  It  is  impossible  to  overestimate 
the  importance  of  pure  milk  as  food,  and  authorities  have  come 
to  insist  very  rigidly  upon  its  quality.  This  has,  of  course,  resulted 
in  an  increase  in  the  price  of  milk,  but  the  benefit  is  worth  the 


CATTLE  117 

cost ;  it  is  astonishing  that  there  was  not  more  disease  in  the 
past,  considering  the  carelessness  with  which  the  milk  supply 
used  to  be  treated. 

Butter  and  cheese.  Butter  and  cheese  are  two  very  important 
products  of  the  dairy.  The  centers  of  their  production  need  not 
be  so  near  the  market  as  in  the  case  of  milk.  Until  1830  cheese 
was  made  in  the  farmhouses,  and  was  given  in  exchange  for  sup- 
plies from  the  village  stores  ;  but  thereafter  it  was  realized  that 
there  were  profits  in  cheese-making,  and  a  change  in  the  manu- 
facture came  about.  Separate  "'  cheese  houses "  were  built  on 
farms,  and  about  the  middle  of  the  century  the  cheese  factory 
came  into  vogue.  The  milk  was  collected  over  a  wide  area,  con- 
veyed to  a  favorably  located  factory,  and  there  converted  into 
cheese.  The  cheese  factory,  says  one  author,  is  the  gift  of  the 
New  York  dairymen  to  the  world.  The  factory  system  spread 
rapidly  between  i860  and  1870;  by  1866  the  state  of  New  York 
alone  had  over  five  hundred  factories,  and  by  1870  there  were 
about  thirteen  hundred  in  the  whole  country.  In  recent  times 
the  industry  has  continued  to  expand  in  a  remarkable  degree. 
Similarly  butter  factories  have  developed  to  take  the  place  of 
the  former  home  industry. 

Centers  of  the  dairy  industry.  Such  specialization  in  the  pro- 
duction of  dairy  products  has  resulted  in  giving  us  a  dairy  indus- 
try quite  distinct  from  the  live-stock  industry  with  which  it  was 
more  closely  associated  in  its  beginnings.  The  main  centers  of 
the  dairy  industry  are  in  the  Eastern  states  and  in  the  various 
states  of  the  corn  belt. 

Other  products.  There  are  other  products  of  cattle-raising  be- 
sides the  beef  and  the  milk.  Chief  among  these  are  the  hides. 
Cattle-raising  is  a  different  thing  when  leather  is  the  product  con- 
templated. Rut  these  a.spects  of  the  subject  are  to  receive  mention 
in  a  later  chapter  (XXII). 


^M^JIi'ililiS 


n'-M^.Vri 


^^■^ggS^.^i^fc?^- 


CHAPTER  X 


SWINE  AND  SHEEP 


SwiXE 


Nature  of  the  animal.  Swine  were  native  to  the  Far  East,  but 
spread  in  very  early  times  to  the  western  world.  They  are  easy 
to  keep,  being  tame  and  hardy  ;  and  of  all  our  domestic  food 
animals  they  are  the  most  prolific.  They  come  to  maturity  in  a 
few  months.  We  kill,  in  an  average  year,  over  three  quarters  of 
our  hogs  without  impairing  their  numbers.  Further,  the  hog  is 
not  particular  in  the  matter  of  his  diet  —  is,  in  fact,  a  fine  door- 
yard  scavenger,  eating  anything  and  everything  with  cheerful 
lack  of  discrimination.  It  is  pretty  easy  to  keep  a  pig,  and  if 
facilities  are  available  it  is  profitable  to  rear  large  numbers. 

Early  stages  of  the  industry.  Hogs  were  introduced  into  this 
hemisphere  by  Columbus  in  1493.  Later,  the  Spanish  brought 
them  to  Florida,  and  the  Portuguese  to  Nova  Scotia  and  Newfound- 
land. There  were  swine  in  Jamestown,  Virginia,  in  1609  ;  and 
they  reproduced  so  rapidly  thereabouts  that  people  had  to  build 
palisades  to  keep  them  out  of  town.  They  were  introduced  into  the 
Plymouth  colony  in  1624  and  into  New  York  the  following  year. 
But  these  early  arrivals  were  of  inferior  quality  ;  it  has  taken  care- 
ful breeding,  selection,  and  feeding  to  produce  the  best  breeds  of 
the  present.  In  early  colonial  days,  and  on  the  Western  frontier 
later  on,  pigs  were  not  always,  or  even  usually,  kept  in  pens,  but 
were  allowed  to  run  wild  and  feed  on  nuts,  roots,  and  other  forage. 

118 


SWINE  AND  SHEEP  1 19 

The  wide  use  of  pork.  Pork  has  always  been  a  palatable  and, 
at  the  same  time,  a  comparatively  cheap  meat.  This  is  due  chiefly 
to  the  fact  that  the  hog  lives  on  cheap  food  and  is  so  wonderfully 
prolific.  Pork  is  a  favorite  meat  practically  all  over  the  world,  even 
among  many  savage  peoples ;  for  the  hog  easily  adapts  himself  to 
a  variety  of  natural  conditions  and  is  at  home  almost  anywhere. 

Breeds  of  swine.  Aside  from  the  unimproved  variety  of  swine 
there  are  numerous  breeds  well  known  to  stock-raisers.  Large 
size  was  formerly  the  chief  aim  of  the  breeding,  without  much 
regard  being  paid  to  the  proportions  of  the  body.  Not  until  after 
the  Revolution  was  much  attention  paid  to  improving  our  breeds 
of  swine,  but  during  the  succeeding  half-century  considerable 
progress  was  made.  Between  1820  and  1S30  the  Chester  White 
breed  was  developed  by  crossing  some  white  swine  common  in 
Pennsylvania  with  some  imported  white  stock  from  England  ;  and 
about  1830  the  Berkshire  breed  was  introduced  from  England. 
The  latter  breed  yielded  a  good  percentage  of  lean  meat  and 
was  in  favor  as  a  producer  of  bacon  and  ham  ;  but  it  was  not 
until  1870  that  it  came  into  general  favor.  The  Poland-China 
breed  was  developed  in  Ohio  about  1840  by  crossing  other  breeds; 
known  under  a  variety  of  names  until  1872,  it  was  finally  termed 
Poland-China  in  that  year  by  a  national  convention  of  swine- 
breedcrs.  Further  favorable  results  were  attained  by  crossing  this 
breed  with  the  Berkshire.  It  is  astonishing  to  what  scientific 
accuracy  and  effectiveness  hog-breeding  has  now  advanced  ;  to 
become  an  expert  breeder  requires  much  ability,  study,  and 
experience. 

Says  an  expert,  writing  in  the  Twelfth  Census  Report : 

The  interest  in  swine-breeding  in  recent  years  is  illustrated  by  the  dates  of 
first  registration  of  the  different  swine-breeders'  associations,  which  were  as 
follows:  American  Beriishire,  1875;  Standard  Poland-China,  1877;  Central 
Poland-China,  1879;  American  Chester  White,  1884;  American  Essex,  i8cS7; 
American  Duroc-Jersey,  1890;  and  Standard  Chester  White,  1890.  As  a 
result  of  this  interest  on  the  part  of  breeders,  swine  in  this  country  have 
attained  an  admirable  standard  with  regard  to  form,  bone,  per  cent  of  offal, 
and  line  of  maturity. 


I20 


INDUSTRY   AND  TRADE 


Pork  and  slavery.  Swine  production  in  this  country's  earlier 
daj's  had  its  close  relations  with  slavery.  Bacon  was  a  cheap 
food,  and  was  in  great  demand  in  the  slave  states  for  the  slaves. 
But  the  planters  who  had  the  slaves  did  not  raise  many  pigs,  in 
view  of  the  far  greater  profits  to  be  obtained  in  planting  a  few 
large  crops,  such  as  cotton,  tobacco,  and  sugar.  This  allowed  parts 
of  the  country  better  adapted  to  hog-raising  to  find  a  favorable 
market  for  their  pork  products  in  the  slave  states ;  the  corn  states 


HOGS  i;i:iN(;  (okn-mji   imik   .market 


in  the  northwestern  section  and  in  the  Central  West  seized  the 
opportunity  and  came  to  command  the  Southern  market.  For 
corn  and  hogs  go  together  —  w'here  you  find  the  one  you  are 
likely  to  find  the  other.  "Hog  and  hominy"  has  been  almost  a 
synonym  for  food  in  general  in  certain  parts  of  the  country. 

"  Corn  on  the  hoof."  This  relation  of  the  two  industries  of 
corn-raising  and  hog-raising  deserves  further  attention.  It  appears 
that  certain  farmers  discovered  that  corn-fed  pork  was  sweeter 
and  otherwise  superior  to  the  swill-fed.  But  in  the  days  before 
the  building  of  Western  railways  corn  was  cheap  enough,  we  have 
seen,  to  be  used  as  fuel ;  it  was  certainly  a  sufficiently  inexpen- 
sive stock  food,  for  it  sold,  at  times,  for  five  or  six  cents  a  bushel. 


SWINE  AND   SHEEP 


121 


The  idea  developed  of  herding  the  hogs  in  pens,  instead  of  letting 
them  range  about  as  formerly,  and  of  feeding  them  on  the  abun- 
dant corn.  This  enabled  hog-raisers  to  put  them  on  the  market 
well  fattened  at  any  time  they  wished  ;  and,  once  the  enterprise 
had  proved  itself  practicable,  the  industry  developed  rapidly  in  the 
corn  states.  This  was  about  seventy  years  ago,  in  such  states  as 
Kentucky  and  its  neighbors  just  north  of  the  Ohio  River ;  and 
from  this  region  the  indus- 
try spread  farther  west- 
ward with  the  march  of 
population  beyond  the 
Mississippi.  Even  when 
railroads  had  come  to  form 
a  network  over  these  states, 
hog-raising  continued  on 
a  large  scale,  because  the 
pork  could  be  sent  to  mar- 
ket as  readily  as  the  corn  ; 
thus  the  corn  was  sent  in 
"on  the  hoof."  A  large 
pork-packing  business  soon 
developed  in  the  Western 
cities ;  for  Western  hogs 
were  largely  packed  when 
slaughtered,  whereas  those 
of  the  East  were  more 
commonly  consumed  freshly  killed.  The  cities  conspicuously 
associated  with  the  pork-packing  business  in  its  earlier  stages 
were  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  Indianapolis,  Milwaukee, 
and  Louisville. 

Location  of  the  industry.  At  the  present  day  the  swine  belt 
is  practically  identical  with  the  corn  belt.  The  great  region  for 
swine,  not  only  for  the  United  States  but  for  the  world,  is  that 
group  of  corn-producing  states  which  we  have  already  had  occa- 
sion  to   mention  :    Iowa,    Illinois,    Nebraska,    Missouri,    Indiana, 


PORK    IX    A    PACKING-HOUSE,    CHICAGO 


122  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Texas,  Kansas,  and  Ohio.  Considerably  more  than  half  of  the 
swine  in  the  country  arc  to  be  found  in  these  eight  states,  which 
retain  a  large  percentage  of  their  corn,  in  order  to  con\ert  it  into 
pork  before  it  is  disposed  of. 

The  "  lard  hog  "  and  the  "  bacon  hog."  The  American  hog  is 
called  the  lard  hog,  as  distinguished  from  the  so-called  bacon  hog 
of  Canada  and  luu'ope.    It  is  the  corn  that  makes  the  difference, 


DISTRIBUTION'   OF   SWINE    BY   STATES   (NUMBERS   IN  THOUSANDS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 


for  it  is  a  great  fattener ;  while  the  bacon  hog  comes  from  the 
barley-growing  districts  of  Canada  and  Europe.  It  is  because 
barley  costs  more  than  corn  to  produce  that  the  stock-raiser  can- 
not afford  to  feed  grain  to  the  swine  ;  they  live  as  far  as  possible 
on  grass,  and  especially  clover.  But  this  diet  results  in  "more  lean 
meat  in  the  pig's  body  than  is  found  in  the  American  hog,  and 
those  in  America  who  like  English  bacon  must  send  abroad  for 
it.  We  therefore  import  bacon,  although  we  export  to  PZngland 
and  Ireland  vast  quantities  of  cheaper  pork.  The  most  important 
center  of  European  hog-raising  is  in  the  barley  regions  of  Germany 


SWINE  AND  SHEEP 


123 


and  Russia,  along  the  Baltic  ;  these  countries,  next  to  the  United 
States,  are  the  largest  producers  of  hogs  ;  but  we  raise  sexeral 
times  as  many  of  these  animals  per  annum  as  the  two  combined. 

Pork-packing.  In  the  case  of  swine,  likewise,  appear  the 
wonderful  economy  and  efficiency  of  the  packing  plant.  Nothing 
is  wasted.  Hair,  intestines,  hoofs,  and  bones  are  utilized  for 
mattresses,  brushes, 
sausage  casings,  glue, 
fertilizer,  and  other 
products.  Grease,  soap, 
gelatin,  etc.  are  by- 
products. The  pack- 
ing plants  turn  out 
more  than  a  hundred 
articles  which  are  not 
used  as  food.  The 
meat  is  marketed  in 
almost  every  known 
form  —  fresh,  salted, 
smoked,  canned,  pick- 
led, dried,  and  so  on. 

Slaughtering.  In 
the  case  of  hogs,  we 
are  led  to  remark  upon 
the  rapidity  and  effi- 
ciency of  the  slaugh- 
tering. This  astonishing  development  of  industry  comes  out,  of 
course,  in  the  butchering  of  cattle  and  sheep,  but  it  is  perhaps 
more  in  evidence  in  the  case  of  the  hog. 

Says  a  writer  in  the  Twelfth  Census  Report : 


FHXING   TUliS    WITH    I'UHIC    LAKl) 


The  hogs  are  driven  to  a  large  solid  wheel,  with  chains  fastened  at  inter- 
vals along  the  rim.  With  these  chains  the  hog  is  shackled  by  one  hind  leg. 
The  wheel  revolves,  slowly  raising  the  squealing  porker.  As  he  gets  near  the 
top,  the  hog  is  detached  automatically  from  the  wheel,  and  a  hook  attached 
to  a  sloping  rail  carries  the  victim  to  the  butcher.    With  a  swift  moti(jn,  almost 


124  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

mechanical  because  of  its  long  practice,  the  throat  is  cut  lengthways,  and  the 
caroiss  is  run  along  a  short  distance  to  allow  the  blood  to  run  out,  which  is 
drawn  off  and  used  largely  in  the  manufacture  of  fertilizers.  After  a  short 
time  has  been  allowed  for  this  draining,  the  carcass  is  plunged  into  a  bath  of 
scalding  water.  It  is  then  brought  automatically  to  a  table,  across  which  it  is 
dragged  through  a  scraping  machine  by  an  endless  chain.  This  machine  does 
the  work  better  than  it  could  be  done  by  hand,  leaving  the  bristles  in  much 
better  condition.  It  does  its  work  very  thoroughly,  its  blades  being  mounted 
on  cylinders  coming  in  contact  with  every  part  of  the  body.  To  insure  perfect 
results,  the  body  is  then  gone  over  by  hand  scrapers,  after  which  the  carcass 
is  thoroughly  washed  with  a  hose.  Next  the  head  is  nearly  severed,  the 
gambrels  are  cut,  and  the  body  suspended  by  them  from  the  rail. 

The  body  is  then  opened  and  dressed,  the  leaf  lard  is  removed,  the  head 
is  taken  off,  the  tongue  removed,  and,  lastly,  the  body  is  split  in  two.  All  this 
is  done  at  the  rate  of  twenty  hogs  per  minute.  Thence  the  two  halves  go  to 
the  chill  room,  where  they  remain  about  twenty-four  hours,  until  after  the 
animal  heat  has  left  the  body  and  it  is  thoroughly  chilled.  After  this  the  sides 
are  run  to  the  cutting  tables. 

Sheep 

Utility  of  the  animal.  The  sheep  is  yet  another  of  the  anciently 
domesticated  animals  ;  the  wealth  of  the  Israelites  and  other  pas- 
toral peoples  of  antiquity  was  largely  in  sheep,  which  were  origi- 
nally raised  for  their  skins  and  milk  as  well  as  for  their  meat. 
They  also  figured  largely  in  religious  ceremonies,  being  one  of 
the  chief  sacrifices.  In  modern  times  they  are  valued  for  their 
flesh  and  wool ;  and  improvements  in  breeding  are  designed  to 
better  their  qualities  along  these  lines. 

Early  sheep-raising.  There  were  wild  sheep  in  America  before 
the  Discovery  (the  Rocky  Mountain  sheep  has  always  been  an 
interesting  animal  to  the  hunter),  but  there  were  no  traces  of 
domestication.  Later  the  Indians  of  the  arid  states  of  the  South- 
west became  great  sheep-raisers,  but  their  animals  were  descended 
from  Old  World  stock.  The  domesticated  sheep  was  probably  a 
native  of  Asia  and  thence  spread  widely  over  the  face  of  the 
earth.  Columbus,  once  more,  was  responsible  for  the  introduction 
of  the  Old  World  product;  he  brought  sheep  to  America  in  1493. 
Of  all  the  early  European  settlers  the  Spanish  and  English  were 


SWINE  AND  SHEEP 


125 


most  active  in  bringing  over  the  sheep.  In  the  sixteenth  century 
the  Spaniards  introduced  them  into  Florida  and  Mexico,  where  they 
multipHed  rapidly  and  whence  they  speedily  spread  both  north 
and  south,  especially  into  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  Utah.  The 
English  brought  sheep  to  Virginia  in  1609,  but  their  increase 
was  slow  at  first,  owing  to  the  destructive  activity  of  wild  animals ; 
and  the  same  was  true  in  New  York,  whither  they  were  brought 
from    Holland   in   1625.     In   early  colonial    times   sheep-raising 


A   SHEPIIKRD    AND    SHF.RI' 


could  be  most  safely  carried  on  in  regions  which  afforded  natural 
protection  against  wild  beasts,  as,  for  instance,  on  the  islands 
along  the  coast. 

The  merino.  The  breed  of  sheep  most  prized  for  its  wool  is 
the  merino,  which,  while  it  probably  originated  in  Asia  Minor 
and  was  thence  brought  to  the  West,  received  such  care  and 
underwent  such  improvement  in  Spain  that  that  country  is  always 
thought  of  as  the  originator  of  the  breed.  The  merino  sheep  is, 
so  to  speak,  all  fleece.  His  coat  hangs  loosely  on  his  body,  and 
its  folds  provide  a  great  amount  of  space  for  wool ;  whereas  the 
old  unimproved  German  sheep  had  5500  hairs  per  square  inch. 


126 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


the  merino  has  40,000 ;  and  he  has  a  good  many  square  inches 
to  have  his  thousands  on.  And  this  fleece  weighs  him  down  to 
such  an  extent  that  he  cannot  leap  fences  and  do  damage  as  his 
longer-legged  and  less  handicapped  fellows  can.  Once  upon  a  time 
a  New  England  sheep-raiser  became  disgusted  with  his  animals 
because  they  were  always  doing  damage  to  neighbors'  crops  and 
getting  him  into  trouble,  and  he  tried  to  raise,  from  a  queer  young 
ram,  animals  whose  legs  should  be  so  short  and  bowed  that  they 
could  not  jump  fences.     He  succeeded,  and  the  resulting  breed 

was  called  Ancon. 
They  were  quite  the 
rage  for  a  time  ;  but 
then  came  in  the 
merino  variety  from 
Spain,  which  speedily 
ran  the  Ancons  out 
of  favor,  so  that  now 
they  are  merely  a 
name.  The  superiority 
of  the  merino  lies  in 
the  fineness  of  the 
wool  and  in  the  amount 
or  weight  of  wool  for 
each  individual  fleece.  The  wool  is  so  close  as  to  enable  the 
sheep  to  endure  very  cold  weather ;  this  ability  to  resist  the 
cold  and  to  live  on  the  coarsest  food,  combined  with  an  unequaled 
docility,  has  made  the  merino  very  satisfactory  wherever  it  has 
been  imported. 

Introduction  of  the  merino.  In  order  that  the  very  best  wool 
might  be  available  for  home  manufacture,  there  were  imported 
into  this  country,  in  18 10,  twenty-six  thousand  merino  sheep, 
which  were  distributed  throughout  the  country.  Owing  to  the 
depression  in  the  industries  of  the  United  States  following  upon 
the  Napoleonic  Wars,  in  18 15  and  18 16,  wool  could  not  be 
marketed,  and  so  whole  flocks  of  merinos  were  slaughtered  ;  but 


MERINO    RAM 


SWINE  AND   SHEEP 


127 


with  the  revival  of  manufactures  after  1820  attention  was  again 
given  to  the  merino.  By  this  time,  however,  the  Spanisli  merino 
had  been  bred  with  the  native  Saxon  sheep,  producing  the  Saxony 
merino,  in  which  an  extreme  fineness  of  wool  had  been  developed 
at  a  sacrifice  of  other  cjualities.  But  the  marked  physical  weak- 
ness of  the  Saxony  merinos,  together  with  the  general  decline  in 
the  value  of  wool,  prevented  them  from  ever  gaining  a  strong 
hold  in  this  country. 

The  karakul.  A  new 
departure  is  now  being 
made,  in  both  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  by  the 
introduction,  on  special 
ranches,  of  the  so-called 
"  karakul  "  sheep.  These 
are  common  in  Bokhara, 
western  Turkestan,  and 
neighboring  regions  and 
produce  the  valuable  article, 
ranked  as  a  fur,  called  Per- 
sian lamb.  The  results  so 
far  obtained  since  the  intro- 
duction of  karakuls,  in 
1908,  indicate  that  these 
sheep  can  be  raised  as  suc- 
cessfully in  this  country  as 

in  their  original,  home.  The  pure-blood  lambs  yield  the  most 
valuable  pelts ;  but  when  karakuls  are  crossed  with  our  ordi- 
nary breeds  of  sheep,  there  is  said  to  be  a  marked  improvement 
in  the  wool  and  in  the  character  of  the  mutton  as  well,  and 
the  lambs  are  said  to  be  heavier  than  the  average  of  those  born 
of  our  usual  breeds. 

The  mutton  breeds.  There  was  a  marked  change  in  the  sheep 
industry  about  tlu-  middle  of  tiie  nineteenth  century,  consisting 
in  the  transition  from  the  raising  of  the  (ine-wool  sheep  to  the 


©  Bureau  ol  Animal  Industry,  U.  S,  Uept.  of  Agiia 
THE   SKIN   OF   A    KARAKUL   LAMB 


128 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


production  of  the  coarse-wool  and  mutton  sheep.  The  mutton 
breeds  were  brought  from  Canada  and  England  and  were  widely 
distributed  east  of  the  Mississippi  River.  This  grade  of  sheep 
helped  to  increase  the  output  of  distinctively  combing  wools;  and 
to  improve  the  mutton  breeds  French  sheep  were  introduced  and 
crossed  with  other  varieties.  In  the  states  east  of  the  Mississippi 
the  mutton  breeds  gradually  gained  the  ascendancy ;  farther  west, 
as  population  increased  and  meat  became  relatively  more  in  de- 
mand than  wool,  the  mutton  breeds  came  to  be  preferred.    The 

total  consumption  of 
lamb  and  mutton  has 
increased  appreciably 
during  the  last  ten 
years  ;  a  few  years  ago 
more  than  nine  and  a 
half  million  sheep  and 
lambs  were  slaugh- 
tered in  plants  subject 
to  federal  inspection. 
The  number  now  aver- 
ages a  good  deal  above 
this  figure.  Besides 
the  mutton  there  are  other  carcass  products  derived,  such  as 
tallow ;  one  of  the  objects  in  raising  sheep  is  to  get  their  fat. 
In  the  past  there  was  even  a  variety  known  as  the  "  fat-tailed 
sheep,"  which  had  large  deposits  of  fatty  tissue  at  the  tail  —  so 
large  at  times  that  the  tails  required  artificial  support  in  the  form 
of  little  carts.  Other  products  of  the  carcasses  are  such  as  are 
derived  in  the  packing-houses  from  cattle  and  swine.  The  so- 
called  "  catgut "  is  made  from  sheep's  entrails. 

Breeding  for  meat.  At  the  outset  of  the  twentieth  century-  the 
merino  and  English  types  of  sheep  were  nearly  equal  in  number 
in  the  United  States,  but  since  that  time  there  has  been  a  marked 
tendency  to  increase  the  mutton  breeds,  especially  in  the  more 
thickly  populated  regions  east  of  the  Mississippi. 


A   FAT-TAILED   SHEEP 


SWINE  AND  SHEEP 


129 


Westward  movement  of  the  industry.  Owing  to  the  abundance 
of  good  pasture  land  in  the  West,  the  center  of  sheep-raising 
has  moved  westward  along  with  other  pastoral  industries.  Before 
1840  there  were  about  18,000,000  sheep  in  this  country,  of  which 
the  greater  number  were  in  the  Atlantic  states,  between  Virginia 
and  Maine  inclusive,  and  in  the  Ohio  River  basin.  In  1850  and 
i860  Ohio,   New  York,   and   Pennsylvania,   in  order,  were  the 


A    S1IKI'1IKI{D    AM)    HIS    FLOCK 


states  having  the  most  sheep;  in  1870  Ohio  still  led,  but  with 
California  second,  and  New  York  third;  in  1875  California  had 
reached  first  place,  followed  by  Ohio,  Texas,  and  Michigan  ;  in 
more  recent  times  the  order  became  :  Wyoming,  Montana,  New 
Mexico,  Idaho,  Ohio,  California,  Oregon,  and  Texas.  There  have 
occurred  some  interesting  shifts,  but  the  West  has  won  out. 
However,  there  arc  many  sheep  cast  of  the  Mississippi  still  — 
about  one  third  of  the  total  number ;  in  fact,  sheep  are  to  be 
found  in  respectable  numbers  in  every  state  in  the  Union.    The 


I30 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


number  in  New  England  is  small,  though  this  section  offers 
attractions  for  sheep-raising.  The  case  of  New  England  is  not 
so  bad  as  it  was  represented  to  be  by  the  humorist  who  said 
that  the  sheep  farmer  had  to  let  his  sheep  down  between  the 
rocks,  by  the  hind  legs,  to  get  the  few  blades  of  grass. 

Other  sheep-raising  countries.     The  United  States  is  one  of  the 
leading  sheep-raising  countries,  but  comes  third  after  Australia 


DISTRIBUTION   OF   SHEEP   BY   STATES   (NUMBERS   IN   THOUSANDS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Report 


and  Argentina ;  other  important  producers  are  Asiatic  Turkey, 
Russia,  the  United  Kingdom,  Uruguay,  New  Zealand,  and  South 
Africa.  It  will  be  noted  that  several  of  these  are  in  the  south 
temperate  zone.  This  zone,  with  less  than  1.5  per  cent  of  the 
earth's  population,  has  well  on  towards  one  half  of  the  sheep ; 
it  shows  ten  sheep  per  person,  whereas  in  the  world  as  a  whole 
there  are  about  three  sheep  to  eight  persons.  The  countries  are 
remote,  semiarid,  and  sparse  of  population  ;  the  sheep  thrive,  and 
there  is  room  enough.  Sheep  are  stupid  and  defenseless  and 
have  to  be  taken  care  of,  and  that  is  done  by  nomadic  herders 


.SWINE  AND   SHEEP 


131 


and  sheep  dogs  at  very  small  cost.  The  relation  of  sheep-grazing 
to  rainfall  has  been  expressed  as  follows  :  In  Australia  a  plain 
with  ten  inches  of  rainfall  will  support  ten  sheep  to  the  square 
mile ;  if  there  are  thirteen  inches  it  will  support  twenty  sheep ; 
and  if  there  are  twenty  inches,  seventy  sheep. 

Wool   and    shearing.     Our   domestic   wool    is   of   two   distinct 
classes :    that   which    is   taken   from   live   sheep   and   that   taken 


SHEEP   KEITKMNf.    I\    AITIMX   TO   THE   VALLEYS 


from  carcasses  and  known  as  "  pulled  wool."  Of  our  total  pro- 
duction of  a  little  less  than  300,000,000  pounds,  by  far  the 
largest  proportion  is  sheared  wool.  It  is  the  common  practice  in 
America  to  shear  sheep  but  once  a  year,  generally  in  the  spring, 
but  in  the  South  and  Southwest  they  are  often  shorn  in  both 
spring  and  fall.  The  reasons  for  double-shearing  are  varied,  the 
factor  of  climate  (heat)  being  the  chief  one  ;  loss  of  wool  from 
the  tearing  off  of  the  longer  fleece  on  underbrush  is  another 
reason.    The  two  fleeces  generally  outweigh  a  single  one,  but  the 


132  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

extra  wool,  it  is  said,  docs  not,  in  all  cases,  make  up  for  the  cost 
in  time  and  labor  of  the  second  shearing. 

The  increasing  weight  of  fleeces.  At  the  beginning  of  this 
century  the  average  weight  of  a  fleece  was  6."]  pounds,  which  was 
I.I  pounds  greater  than  in  1890  and  1.9  greater  than  in  1880, 
During  the  last  half-century  the  average  weight  of  the  American 


SHEARING    SHEEP 


fleece  has  increased  about  140  per  cent — a  fine  tribute  to  the  efforts 
of  the  sheep-breeder.  At  present  the  average  weight  per  fleece  has 
risen  to  nearly  7  pounds  ;  thus  the  increase  within  the  last  fifteen 
years  or  so  has  not  been  as  marked  as  it  was  in  the  preceding  decades. 
Wool  imports.  It  is  somewhat  surprising,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  we  raise  so  many  sheep,  to  find  that  normally  we  import  up 
to  more  than  one  half  of  the  wool  required  for  domestic  con- 
sumption ;  during  the  last  few  years,  according  to  a  report  of  the 
Secretary  of  Agriculture,  these  importations  have  ranged  from 
nearly  250,000,000  to  over  500,000,000  pounds  each  year,  the 
average  being  over  300,000,000. 


CHAPTER  XI 


HORSES  AND  MULES 


Introduction  of  the  horse.  Fossil  remains  prove  the  existence 
of  the  horse  both  in  the  Old  and  the  New  World  in  an  earlier 
geological  period.  But  he  became  extinct  on  this  continent,  so 
that  when  America  was  discovered  there  were  no  horses  here. 
The  first  brought  over  came  with  Columbus,  who  carried  with 
him,  as  we  have  seen,  several  varieties  of  domestic  animals  on 
his  second  voyage,  in  1493.  The  first  horses  in  that  part  of 
America  which  is  now  the  United  States  were  landed  in  Florida 
in  1527  ;  there  were  forty  or  so  of  them,  and  they  all  died  soon 
after  their  arrival.  De  Soto  took  horses  with  him  on  his  western 
journey,  which  were  abandoned  and  became,  in  all  probability,  the 
ancestors  of  the  wild  horses  of  the  Southwest,  on  the  Texas  plains 
and  the  prairies.  These  animals  were,  then,  of  Spanish  origin. 
The  French  introduced  horses  into  Acadia  in  1604  ;  in  1609- 
I'lnglish  horses  were  brought  to  Jamestown,  Virginia;  in  1623 
horses  of  Dutch  origin  were  introduced  into  New  York  ;  and  in 
1629  came  the  first  arrivals  in  Massachusetts. 

Horse-breeding.  At  one  period  in  our  colonial  history  horses 
were  so  cheap  that  careful  breeding  was  neglected  and  the  animals 
ran  down  in  size  until  the  colonists  became  anxious  about  the 
matter  and  put  into  effect  laws  to  forbid  the  breeding  of  under- 
sized horses  and  to  jirohibit  them  from  ranging  at  large.  It 
is  said  that   the    typical  American  horse    has    sprung    from    tin- 

'3.5 


134 


IXDrSTRV  AND  TRADE 


THE    EXTINCT    FIVE-TOED    AMERICAN    HORSE 


Stock  imported  into  Acadia,  Virginia,  New  York,  and  Massachu- 
setts, constantly  improved  by  crossing  with  the  best  Old  World 

breeds.  The  really  sig- 
nificant improvements — 
in  size,  strength,  speed, 
and  other  qualities  — 
have  been  made  within 
the  last  century. 

A  United  States  cen- 
sus report  speaks  of  this 
matter  as  follows  : 

The  first  horses  imported 
for  breeding  purposes  were 
the  English  thoroughbreds, 
a  cross  between  the  Arabian 
and  the  Barb.  They  were 
brought  to  this  country  about  1750,  but  the  total  number  imported  prior  to 
the  Revolution  did  not  exceed  fifty  horses  and  twenty  mares,  which  were 
distributed  in  Maryland,  Virginia.  New  York,  and  North  Carolina.  Immediately 
after  the  Revolution,  how- 
ever, racing  became  popu- 
lar, and  many  thoroughbreds 
were  imported.  The  French- 
Canadian  horse  is  the  de- 
scendant of  horses  brought 
to  Canada  by  the  French. 
They  have  become  reduced 
in  size,  but  still  retain  the 
good  qualities  of  their  Nor- 
man ancestors  and  constitute 
one  of  the  best  breeds  of 
farm  horses.  Roadsters  and, 
in  less  degree,  coach  horses 
are  bred  from  trotting  stock. 
There  are  English  and  other 
foreign  breeds  or  types  of  coach  horses,  but  they  are  not  much  used  in 
this  country.  Foreign  draft  horses  of  all  the  well-known  breeds  have 
been  constandy  imported  into  this  country,  but  the  English  Draft,  the 
Clydesdale,  and  the  Percheron  are  most  common.  There  are  also  Belgian 
and  German  horses. 


A    THOROUGHBRED 


HORSES  AND  MULES 


135 


Improved  breeds.  An  important  event  in  the  horse-raising 
industry  was  the  importation  of  the  Percheron  breed ;  this  type 
of  horse  was  a  great  improvement  in  the  type  of  draft  horse. 
Before  this  the  best  burden-bearing  horse  had  been  the  Conestoga, 
a  type  associated  with  the  well-known  stage-coach  period,  when 
the  Conestoga  wagons  plied  between  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburgh. 

Horse-racing.  The  trotting  horse  is,  to  a  very  large  degree,  an 
American  product.    When  Americans  took  up  horse-trotting  as  a 


A   CONESTOGA   WAGON 


sport,  they  soon  developed  a  type  of  trotter  which  could  outrace 
all  comers.  For  the  trotting  horse  good  roads  were  a  necessity, 
and  as  good  roads  are  a  nineteenth-century  product,  so  is  the 
trotter ;  up  to  near  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  buggy  was 
little  known,  as  the  usual  method  of  traveling  was  on  horseback. 
The  horse  car.  The  introduction  of  the  horse  car  on  the  streets 
of  American  cities,  and  its  general  use  for  a  period,  created  a 
new  demand  for  horses.  Cities  and  towns  everywhere,  but  espe- 
cially in  the  West,  were  growing  rapidly,  and  business  in  general 


136 


IXDrSTRV  AND  TRADE 


was  very  good.  The  introduction  of  horse  cars  called  for  a  great 
many  horses,  whose  lives  in  tiie  cities  were  short.  This  was  due 
to  rough  pavements  and  otiier  unfavorable  conditions  and  also  to 
ill-usage.  Horse-breeding  was  much  stimulated,  and  in  the  nineties 
the  supply  began  to  overtop  the  demand.  By  1895,  however, 
electric  plants  were  so  widely  installed  in  connection  with  street- 
car systems   that  the   horse  was    practically   supplanted   in  that 


THE   FIRST   RAILWAY    CAR    IX   WASHINGTON 

industry.  This  change  threw  many  horses,  formerly  used  for 
hauling  street  cars,  on  the  market,  and  soon  the  demand  for 
cheaper  animals  was  gone. 

The  demand  for  horses.  The  widespread  extension  of  the  trolley 
into  country  districts  stimulated  the  demand  for  horses.  Popula- 
tion grew  up  along  the  new  transportation  lines  and,  rents  being 
low  in  the  suburbs  and  countr}%  people  settled  farther  and  far- 
ther out.  But  until  the  development  of  the  trolley  express  they 
needed  horses  for  the  transportation  of  their  goods  to  the  city. 
Also  the  tremendous  foreign  demand  for  wheat  and  other  cereals 
has  brought  about  heavy  exports,  and  more  and  more  horses  and 
mules  have  been  needed  to  cultivate  the  land.  The  domestic 
demand  for  the  cereals  has  increased  at  the  same  time  ;  and  the 
heightened  interest  in  beef  and  other  animal  products  has  called 
for  an  increased  production  of  corn  and  hay  for  feeding  purposes. 


HORSES  AND  MULES 


137 


But  such  a  development  has  demanded  more  cultivation  and  more 
animals.  In  fact,  since  about  1896,  when  horse  cars  were  becom- 
ing extinct,  there  has  been  a  considerable  foreign  demand  for  our 
horses.  This  exportation  was  stimulated  at  first  by  the  very  low 
domestic  prices  of  American  horses  and,  later,  by  the  great  Euro- 
pean War.  On  the  whole,  in  spite  of  the  swift  advance  of  the 
electric  railway,  the  bicycle,  automobile,  and  motor  truck,  as  well 


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UISTKIIU HON    OK    HORSES    HV   STATICS  (XU.MHERS    IN   THOUSANDS) 
After  map  in  Monthly  Crop  Repoi-t 


as  of  all  sorts  of  farming  implements  driven  by  mechanical  means, 
the  development  of  htjrse-production  has  progressed  at  a  fairly 
even  rate. 

Regions  of  horse-raising.  The  farmers  and  ranchmen  of  the 
Western  states  raise  more  horses  for  the  market  than  do  other 
producers.  The  "  blue-grass  region  "  of  Kentucky,  with  Lexington 
as  a  center,  is  one  of  the  well-known  districts  for  horse-raising. 
Here  are  reared  mainly  trotters  and  driving  horses  instead  of 
draft  animals.  Horses,  also,  go  with  corn  production  ;  the  colts 
are  fattened  on  corn  and  sent  to  Eastern  markets. 


138  INDl'SI'RV   AM)    I'RADK 

Horseflesh.  We  have  considered  the  horse  almost  exckisively 
from  the  standpoint  of  his  use  as  a  transportation  agency.  Origi- 
nally, like  the  rest  of  the  domestic  animals,  he  was  eaten  ;  and 
he  still  is.  It  is  difficult  to  say  just  how  much  horseflesh  is  eaten 
in  this  country,  for  it  is  not  a  popular  food.  Doubtless  this  preju- 
dice will  sometime  disappear,  under  pressure  of  need,  as  it  has 
done  on  occasion  heretofore.  A  good  deal  of  horsehide  is  now 
and  has  always  been  used,  —  baseball  writers  commonly  refer  to 
the  ball  as  "  the  horsehide,"  — but  whatever  there  is  to  say  about 
horse  leather,  as  well  as  about  pigskin  and  sheep  leather,  will 
come  in  better  under  the  leather  industry,  to  be  taken  up  in 
another  chapter. 

Mules 

Nature  of  the  mule.  The  mule  is  a  cross  between  the  ass 
and  the  horse  and  has  been  known  since  remote  antiquity.  It  is 
a  very  tough  and  hardy  animal  and  excellent  for  draft  use.  It 
can  stand  a  warmer  climate  than  the  horse  and  is  therefore  com- 
moner as  a  carrier  in  our  Southern  states,  where  there  are,  in 
some  cases,  more  mules  than  horses.    Says  a  census  report  again  : 

The  hot,  moist  climate  is  quickly  fatal  to  horses  when  hard  worked,  while 
mules  bear  it  with  impunity  and  endure  hardship,  overwork,  and  ill-usage 
without  great  loss,  an  element  of  considerable  importance  in  a  countrj-  where 
work  animals  are  handled  largely  by  ignorant  and  careless  laborers.  Their 
hoofs  are  very  hard,  and  are  shod  either  not  at  all  or  at  infrequent  intervals. 
Their  average  working  life  is  longer  than  that  of  horses.  It  is  claimed  that 
the  mule  will  do  equal  work  on  less  food  than  the  horse,  but  this  is  open  to 
serious  doubt.  They  will,  however,  eat  coarser  forage,  and  can  be  carried 
through  the  winter  in  fair  condition  at  less  expense. 

Virtues  of  the  mule.  It  has  been  said  that  the  reason  why  the 
mule  does  not  displace  the  horse  in  a  country  like  this  is  in  large 
degree  a  matter  of  pride  ;  the  horse  looks  more  respectable  and 
acts  better  than  the  mule.  However,  the  mule  is  credited  with 
more  intelligence,  especially  in  work  on  mountains  and  in  mines. 
It  is  a  calm,  obstinate  animal,  hard  to  "  ratde,"  and  has  been 


HORSES  AND  MULES  139 

known  since  antiquity  for  its  sure-footedness.  To  "work  like  a 
mule  "  is  a  phrase  that  explains  itself ;  as  long  ago  as  Homer's 
time  mules  were  called  "  hard-working."  It  is  fair  to  say  that 
the  mule  does  not  deserve  his  unpopularity,  but  he  evidently  has 
no  pride  to  injure. 

Value  of  the  mules.  There  are  at  the  present  time  over  four 
and  one-half  million  mules  in  the  United  States  —  about  one 
fourth  the  number  of  horses.  Their  rate  of  increase  for  the  last 
fifty  years  has  been  approximately  the  same  as  that  of  horses. 
The  present  farm  value  of  the  mules  is  a  little  over  half  a 
billion  dollars. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FISHERIES 

An  important  resource.  Fishing  is  comparable  to  hunting 
rather  than  to  the  raising  of  domestic  animals.  There  is  no  field 
for  taming  and  domestication  of  fish  ;  it  is  a  question  of  taking 
advantage  of  a  supply  provided  by  nature  and,  later  in  the  devel- 
opment, of  conserving  and  stimulating  that  natural  resource.  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  men  have  practiced  various  methods  of 
securing  food  from  the  water  fauna  since  the  beginning  of 
human  development,  and  the  possibility  of  getting  such  food  has 
had,  throughout  history,  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  destiny 
of  nations. 

Fishing  in  our  early  history.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  fishing 
possibilities  the  early  history  of  our  country  might  well  have  been 
very  different  from  what  it  was.  The  earliest  explorers  and  navi- 
gators noted  the  abundance  of  fish  in  American  waters,  and  also 
of  whales,  which  are  really  mammals  but  which  are  generally 
included  in  a  treatment  of  fisheries  under  the  topic  of  "  whale 
fisheries."  The  New  England  colonies  in  particular  owed  their 
origin  in  no  small  degree  to  the  opportunities  for  developing 
fisheries  in  their  waters  and  in  adjacent  stretches  of  ocean  ;  one 
of  the  main  ideas  in  founding  settlements  in  Massachusetts  was 
to  build  up  fishing  interests.  Massachusetts  became,  from  the 
beginning,  a  center  of  fishing  activities,  and  the  same  thing  may 
be  said,  in  less  degree,  of  the  other  New  England  settlements. 
P'arming  and  fishing  went  hand  in  hand,  but  the  former  pursuit 

140 


141 


142  IXDl'STRY  AND  TRADE 

was  subsidiary  ;  every  good  harbor  became  crowded  with  boats 
and  fringed  with  shipyards.  There  stretched  along  the  shore,  from 
the  New  York  end  of  Long  Island  Sound  to  the  Saint  John 
River,  a  fringe  of  villages  whose  chief  interest  was  fishing. 
Among  them  certain  ones,  such  as  Gloucester,  attained  great 
prosperity  and  reputation.  As  early  as  1731  Massachusetts 
had  600  vessels  and  6000  sailors  at  sea,  half  of  them  in  the 
fisheries. 

Fishing  grounds.  ( )ur  fishermen  have  had  access  to  one  of  the 
two  leading  food-fish  areas  of  the  world.  One  of  these  comprises 
the  waters  of  western  Europe,  with  the  North  Sea  as  a  center, 
and  the  other  the  western  waters  of  the  Atlantic,  especially  along 
the  coasts  of  Newfoundland,  the  maritime  provinces  of  Canada, 
Quebec,  and  the  New  England  and  Middle  Atlantic  States.  A 
great  variety  of  fish  inhabits  the  waters  covering  the  eastern  con- 
tinental shelf  of  North  America  —  cod  (the  "beef  of  the  sea"), 
mackerel,  herring,  halibut,  and  many  others.  Formerly  whales 
also  were  common  in  these  waters   as  well  as  farther  away. 

New  England's  fisheries.  It  is  not  surprising  that  New  Eng- 
land should  have  held  nearly  a  monopoly  of  the  commercial  fish- 
eries of  this  country  until  near  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
centur)',  but  this  was  not  due  solely  to  its  fish  resources.  It  was 
a  question  of  the  comparative  profitableness  of  fishing  as  over 
against  other  occupations.  South  of  the  Hudson  River  the  middle 
colonies  raised  cereals,  and  the  Southern  colonies  tobacco,  rice, 
and  other  warm-climate  products  ;  while  forests  yielded  lumber 
and  naval  stores.  Though  these  southerly  states  had  good  offshore 
and  inshore  fisheries,  their  agriculture  was  so  much  more  profit- 
able for  the  time  that  the  fisheries  were  relatively  undeveloped. 
But  in  New  England,  while  agriculture  was  the  most  important 
single  industry,  it  did  not  so  absorb  all  attention ;  in  many 
respects  the  sea  industry  was  more  profitable.  Out  of  it,  too, 
rose  shipbuilding,  navigation,  and  commerce,  which  gave  to  New 
England  a  greater  variety  of  industries  than  was  to  be  found 
anywhere  else  in  the  colonies. 


FISHERIES 


H3 


Fishing  and  shipping.  Here  we  must  stop  to  consider  the  fact 
that  the  fisheries  of  any  country  have  a  very  close  and  intimate 
relationship  with  various  other  aspects  of  national  life.  A  con- 
siderable percentage  of  the  marine  tonnage  of  important  maritime 
countries  is  always  engaged  in  deep-sea  fishing.  Very  often  it 
has  been  true  that  a  nation  has  owed  its  general  maritime  pre- 
eminence to  the  schooling  in  seamanship  which  its  people  have 


A    NEW   ENGLAND    FISHERMAN    IN   THE    EARLY    DAYS    OF   THE    INDUSTRY 

acquired  in  fishing.  Such  an  influence  the  fishing  industry  of 
the  United  States  has  had  upon  its  shipping  and  other  interests, 
both  in  individual  states,  as  in  J;hc  case  of  New  luigland,  and  in 
the  country  at  large.  The  best  sailors  that  we  have  had  in  the 
merchant  marine  have  come  from  the  coasts  where  the  chief  in- 
dustry has  been  fishing  for  cod,  mackerel,  and  whales.  These 
men  had  learned  to  encounter  without  fear  all  the  perils  of  the 
sea ;  they  sailed  in  the  heaviest  weather  and  "  never  struck 
a  topsail  as  long  as  there  was  a  mast  to  fly  it  from."  These 
were  the  men  who  won  our  naval  triumphs  in  18 12,  and  they 
lonji  remained  the  most  valuable  element  in  our  whole  maritime 


144  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

establishment.  Their  ships  visited  every  corner  of  the  earth, 
often  being  the  tirst  in  the  field,  and  they  thus  became  the 
pioneers  and  scouts  of  our  merchant  marine.  It  is  said  that  the 
first  American  flag  ever  seen  in  I'Lngland  was  on  the  mast  of  a 
whaling  ship  which  had  entered  the  Thames.  The  life  of  these 
fishers  was  fraught  with  great  dangers,  particularly  on  the  Grand 
Banks  of  Newfoundland  and  in  the  whaling  voyages ;  the  reader 
of  Kipling's  "  Captains  Courageous  "  and  Dana's  "  Two  Years 
before  the  Mast "  has  gathered  some  idea  of  the  life  they  led.  It 
was  a  rough  existence,  but  those  who  had  endured  it  contributed 
strength  to  the  fiber  of  the  nation. 

Fishing  rights.  Strictly  speaking,  the  fishing  that  is  done  in 
national  waters  must  be  within  the  three-mile  limit  from  the 
shore,  as  only  that  belt  belongs  exclusively  to  a  nation.  Beyond 
that  limit  anyone  has  the  right  to  fish.  Naturally  there  has  been 
a  good  deal  of  dispute,  with  recourse  to  legal  proceedings,  con- 
cerning fishing  rights. 

Fishery  products.  But  we  must  not,  beginning  as  we  do  with  sea 
fishing,  fail  to  realize  that  a  good  part  of  our  fish  resources  are  in 
the  lakes  and  rivers,  or  forget  that  there  are  other  water  products 
which  are  to  be  reckoned  into  our  fisheries.  There  are  many  arti- 
cles other  than  food  that  are  derived  from  the  fisheries,  —  for  ex- 
ample, oils,  fats,  and  waxes  ;  furs  and  leather  ;  fertilizers  ;  shells  ; 
bones  and  ivory ;  glue ;  isinglass ;  sponges ;  and  so  on.  Numerous 
industries  are  organized  to  work  up  these  various  sea  products. 

Importance  of  our  fisheries.  In  tracing  further  the  develop- 
ment of  our  fisheries  we  find  that  the  wars  —  the  Revolutionary 
War,  the  War  of  1812,  and  the  Civil  War  —  all  dealt  severe 
blows  to  our  fishing  industry.  But  it  recovered  from  them  all 
and  now  surpasses  that  of  any  other  country  in  the  world.  We 
shall  take  up  a  few  of  the  important  branches  of  fishery,  briefly 
tracing  their  development. 

Whaling.  This  industry  began  on  Long  Island,  in  the  cutting 
up  and  trying  out  of  stranded  whales ;  it  was  a  sort  of  com- 
munity business,   and  citizens  were  summoned  to  do  their  part 


FISHERIES 


145 


when  there  was  a  chance  for  it.  Later  they  took  to  small,  and 
presently  to  larger,  boats  and  ships,  and  did  not  wait  for  the  sea 
to  throw  up  the  booty.  But  the  whaling  industry  as  a  big  business 
did  not  get  a  strong  hold  among  us  until  after  the  War  of  18 12. 
Up  to  that  time  it  was  a  more  or  less  important  New  England 
enterprise.  The  tonnage  of  whaling  vessels  in  18 18  was  less 
than  seventeen  thousand.  By  i860  the  size  of  the  whaling  fleet 
had  so  increased  that  the  annual  value  of  its  takings  exceeded 


HAKl'(JO.\lN(i   A    WHALE 
From  an  old  print 

the  value  of  the  products  of  all  other  fishing  interests  put  to- 
gether. Our  whalers  went  to  practically  any  place  on  earth  where 
their  prey  was  to  be  found,  and  the  products  of  their  labors 
formed  an  important  item  in  our  foreign  trade.  Massachusetts 
was  the  center  of  the  industry,  and  the  names  of  Nantucket, 
Marthas  Vineyard,  New  Bedford,  Gloucester,  and  Marblehcad 
were  identified,  in  practice  and  in  story,  with  this  picturesque 
vocation. 

Decline  of  whaling.  But  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  whaling  began  to  decline.  The  whales  were  be- 
coming more  scarce,  and  the  perils  and  cost  of  getting  them,  in 
arctic  latitudes  for  instance,  were  on  the  increase.   Then,  too,  the 


146  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

expanding  manufactures  of  New  England  attracted  investment. 
At  just  this  time,  to  put  on  the  finishing  blow,  when  the  produc- 
tion of  whale  oil  was  falling  off  and  its  price  rising,  petroleum  was 
discovered,  and  "the  prosperous  days  of  the  whalers  ended  when 
oil  poured  forth  from  the  rocks  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth 
at  Titusville,  Pennsylvania."  Scarcely  any  other  industry  in  the 
countr}'  has  shown  such  a  revolution  as  that  of  the  whale  fishery 
during  the  last  sixty  years.  Formerly  capital  to  the  extent  of  tens 
of  millions  of  dollars  was  invested  in  it,  and  it  gave  employment 
to  tens  of  thousands  of  men  ;  but  now  it  has  declined  to  a  posi- 
tion of  comparatively  small  importance,  even  in  those  regions 
where  it  formerly  flourished  most.  Whale  oil  is  still  in  some 
demand,  and  the  high  price  of  whalebone  is  a  stimulus  that  keeps 
some  life  in  the  whaling  industry.  But  the  old  whaling  towns 
have  fallen  on  evil  days,  or  have  been  obliged  to  set  their  course 
of  destiny  by  other  stars.  They  are  in  ruins,  or  have  had  to 
sacrifice  their  romantic  and  picturesque  character  by  adapting 
themselves  to  other  vocations. 

Cod-fishing.  In  colonial  days  cod-fishing  was  an  important  in- 
dustry, especially  in  New  England.  After  the  Revolution  it  strug- 
gled with  adverse  taxation  levied  on  hooks,  lines,  cordage,  and 
duck,  but  by  1829  it  was  on  the  upward  trend,  and  from  1820  to 
i860  it  was  generally  prosperous.  The  highest  tonnage  ever 
employed  in  the  codfishery  was  in  i860,  when  it  reached  136,654 
gross  tons.  The  leading  states  in  this  industry  were  Massachu- 
setts and  Maine.  Cod-fishing  has  not  declined  as  much  as 
whaling,  though  it  has  diminished  somewhat  in  importance 
since  i860.  The  lessened  demand  for  deep-sea  fish  has  been 
brought  about  by  a  rapid  increase  in  the  takings  of  cheaper  kinds 
of  sea  foods,  such  as  salmon,  herring,  and  shellfish  —  cheaper 
because  of  the  smaller  expense  incurred  prior  to  their  arrival  at 
market.  Many  ports  of  Maine  and  Massachusetts  from  which 
great  numbers  of  vessels  had  made  regular  trips  to  the  Great 
Banks  of  Newfoundland  have  given  up  this  business  in  favor  of 
the  inshore  fisheries.    The   supplying  of  fresh   fish  to  summer 


FISHERIES 


147 


resorts  has  been  found  more  profitable,  as  well  as  less  dangerous, 
than  the  old  offshore  voyages  which  had  been  carried  on  during 
the  preceding  period. 

Mackerel-fishing.  The  mackerel  fishery  did  not  amount  to 
much  except  locally  until  1820;  up  to  that  time  the  mackerel 
was  commonly  used  as  cod  bait,  and  only  those  which  were 
fresh  caught  were  eaten.    The  first  trip  for  mackerel,  where  the 


DRVIXG    KISH    AT   GLOUCESTEK,    MASSAClHiSKTlS 

idea  was  to  salt  them  on  board,  is  said  to  have  been  made  in 
1818;  but  when  once  the  possibilities  of  salting  were  seen,  the 
enterprise  speedily  developed.  It  was  never  as  sure,  however, 
as  cod-fishing ;  the  fisherman  can  usually  find  the  cod,  but  the 
supply  of  mackerel  is  likely  to  vary  from  season  to  season  and 
from  place  to  place.  Also,  as  long  as  the  fish  had  to  be  taken  by 
line  —  before  the  invention  of  the  purse  seine,  late  in  the  century 
—  the  catch  was  often  small  because  the  fish  would  not  bite. 
Massachusetts  has  been  the  center  of  this  industry,  wliich  has, 
like  the  codfishery,  declined  somewhat  since  the  Civil  War. 


I4S  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Other  fisheries.  Other  important  fisheries  of  New  England  arc 
the  herring,  shad,  hahbut,  oyster,  lobster,  and  menhaden.  It  should 
be  noted  that  drying  and  salting  fish  as  a  method  of  preservation 
is  not  so  nearly  universal  as  it  used  to  be.  The  vessels  engaged  in 
deep-sea  fishing  nowadays  make  much  use  of  ice,  thus  keeping 
the  catch  fresh  until  they  return  to  port.  Power  boats  are  now 
much  in  use,  especially  inshore,  and  the  fish  can  be  hurried  back 
and  marketed  without  being  cured  in  any  way.  Then,  by  refrig- 
erator cars,  fresh  sea-products  may  be  speeded  far  inland. 

New  England's  supremacy.  What  has  been  said  about  fisheries 
applies  in  large  part  to  New  England,  which  is  really  the  great 
center  of  the  industry.  Gloucester  has  long  been  famous  as  a  great 
fishing  port,  with  several  thousand  people  employed  in  the  work ; 
the  same  is  true  of  Boston.  A  large  percentage  of  the  annual  catch 
is  made  directly  off  the  New  England  coast.  Thus  New  England 
deserves  prominence  in  a  treatment  of  fisheries  ;  her  lobster  and 
oyster  industries  will  receive  mention  a  little  later  on. 

Fishing  south  of  New  England.  Despite  New  England's  long 
start,  the  fisheries  of  the  Eastern  coast  south  of  New  England  are 
now  the  most  valuable  which  we  have  ;  they  did  not  come  into 
prominence  until  1850,  but  have  since  then  attained  their  emi- 
nence. This  has  been  due  to  several  causes  :  railroad  develop- 
ment, increase  of  population,  use  of  refrigeration,  and  development 
of  the  canning  industry.  New  England  was  supreme  so  long  as 
fish  were  merely  salted  or  pickled.  With  the  growth  of  population 
and  rapid  transportation,  together  with  the  use  of  the  refrigerator 
car,  people  not  alone  on  the  coast  but  inland  began  to  develop  a 
fondness  for  fresh  fish,  and  the  cured  cod  and  mackerel  could  not 
compete.  In  any  case  the  demand  became  larger  than  New  Eng- 
land could  meet,  and  the  North  and  South  Atlantic  states  broke 
into  the  market.  The  former  group  of  states  furnished  not  only 
cod  and  other  offshore  fish  but  shad,  bluefish,  and  oysters.  New 
Jersey  and  New  York  are  the  leading  producers.  Among  the 
South  Atlantic  states  North  Carolina  occupies  a  prominent  place 
with  the  oyster,  mullet,  shad,  trout,  striped  bass,  and  clam. 


FISHERIES 


149 


Gulf  fisheries.  Of  the  Gulf-coast  fisheries  it  may  be  said  that 
they  have  rich  resources  available,  but  that  they  attained  commer- 
cial importance  only  after  i860;  as  yet  they  are  only  partially 
developed.  Florida's  fisheries  exceed  those  of  the  other  Gulf 
States  in  productivity  and  include  a  great  variety  involving  the 
oyster,  mullet,  sponge,  and  shrimp. 


CATCHING   SALMON   wmi    A   SKINE 


Pacific-coast  fisheries.  The  fish  of  the  Pacific  coast  are  about  the 
same  as  those  of  the  Atlantic  coast  in  the  same  latitude,  namely, 
cod,  herring,  halibut,  and  the  rest.  But  it  is  the  salmon  that 
gives  prominence  to  the  Western  fisheries.  Nowadays  the  salmon 
fishery  is  important  only  on  the  Pacific.  The  salmon  come  up 
the  rivers  to  spawn,  filling  the  beds  of  the  streams  so  that  they 
appear  to  form  rivers  of  fish,  and  are  easily  netted.  Salmon-fish- 
ing was  carried  on  by  the  Indians  and  early  settlers,  but  it  was 
not  until  the  development  of  the  canning  industry,  about    1864, 


150 


INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 


that  the  Pacific  sahnon  came  into  commercial  prominence.  Since 
then,  both  in  the  Pacific  states  and  Alaska,  the  industry  has 
enjoyed  a  rapid  development. 

Sealing.  Perhaps  in  the  interests  of  completeness  the  fur-seal 
industry  of  Alaska  should  receive  mention,  although  it  does  not 
belong  to  the  United   States   proper.    The   Pribilof   Islands,  in 


AX    ALASKAN    SEAL   ROOKKRV 


Bering  Sea,  remain  the  breeding  ground  of  the  largest  fur-seal 
herd  in  the  world.  Since  Alaska  was  purchased,  in  1867,  the 
government  has  received  a  revenue  of  several  millions  for  the 
privilege  of  taking  seals.  The  leasing  system  was  abolished  in 
recent  years,  and  measures  have  been  adopted  for  preserving 
the  seals.  Next  to  the  salmon  fishery  the  fur-seal  fishery  is  the 
most  valuable  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

Oysters.  The  most  valuable  item  in  the  fisheries  of  this  coun- 
try, already  referred  to  incidentally,  is  the  oyster.  Oysters  are 
taken  in  greater  or  less  quantities  along  the  waters  of  practically 


FISHERIES 


151 


every  state  on  the  coast  of  the  country,  but  the  most  productive 
areas  are  those  of  Chesapeake  Bay  and  Long  Island  Sound.  The 
Indians  used  the  oyster  and  brought  it,  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, to  the  settlers  of  what  is  now  New  York  ;  it  is  said  that 
Pearl  Street  in  New  York  City  received  its  name  from  the  fact 
that  it  was  once  paved  with  oyster  shells.  The  industry  began  a 
triumphant  progress  about  1850  in  nearly  all  the  areas  which 
have  since 
become  im- 
portant in 
production. 
This  coun- 
try furnish- 
es 80  to  90 
per  cent  of 
the  world's 
supply  of 
oysters. 

Lake  and 
river  fish- 
eries. The 
fisheries  of 

the  Great  Lakes  and  of  the  Mississippi  River  and  its  tributaries 
are  of  small  significance  relatively  to  those  of  the  sea. 

The  promotion  of  our  fisheries.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  annual 
wealth  produced  by  all  our  fisheries  is  less  than  the  annual  farm 
value  of  any  one  of  our  leading  agricultural  crops  ;  it  is  but  a 
small  fraction  of  the  value  of  our  wheat.  But  that  does  not  mean 
that  it  is  not  an  important  national  industry.  It  has  been  so 
recognized  of  late,  and  efforts  have  been  made  to  extend  as 
well  as  to  preserve  it.  The  United  States  Bureau  of  Fisheries 
and  various  state  commissions  attend  to  the  artificial  propagation 
and  distribution  of  young  fish  in  interior  waters,  and  there  arc 
numerous  laws  designed  to  protect  fish  that  are  desirable  in 
commerce  or  sport.    There  are  undoubtedly  many  varieties  of  fish 


UNLOADIXf;    OVSTEKS 


152 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


whose  use  is  restricted  because  of  prejudice  or  because  they  are 
unfamihar ;  the  authorities  have  organized  enterprises  to  take 
such  fish  and  introduce  them  into  the  market.  Such  a  common 
water-creature  as  the  porpoise  has  its  possibiUties  in  the  particulars 
of  hide,  blubber,  meat,  and  so-called  "  porpoise-jaw  oil,"  which  is 
of  a  very  fine  quality.    To  an  age  which  has  its  attention  directed 


A  CALIFORXIA  FISH   HATCHERY.      PACKING   SALMON   EGGS   FOR  SHIPMENT 


toward  economies,  the  services  of  science  in  helping  to  keep 
down  the  cost  of  living  by  discovering  cheap  substitutes  ought 
to  be  very  welcome. 

Government  support.  The  office  of  Commissioner  of  Fish  and 
Fisheries  was  created  by  Congress  in  1871,  and  in  1903  it  was 
made  a  bureau  of  the  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  — 
now  the  Department  of  Commerce.  Among  the  duties  of  the 
Bureau  is  the  increasing  of  the  quantity  and  the  bettering  of 
the  quality  of  our  fish  supply. 


PART  IV.    MINERAL  INDUSTRIES 


CHAPTER  XIII 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM 


Minerals  and  mining.  In  Parts  II  and  III  we  have  seen  some- 
thing of  the  progress  of  American  industries  that  have  to  do  with 
hving  things  —  plants  and  animals.  We  come  now  to  the  minerals. 
There  are,  first  of  all,  some  obvious  differences  between  plant  and 
animal  products,  on  the  one  hand,  and  minerals,  on  the  other, 
which,  obvious  though  they  are,  ought  to  be  taken  note  of.  The 
minerals  are  the  typical  natural  resources  ;  you  can  mo\'e  animals 
and  plants  about  from  country  to  country,  —  we  have  seen  that  the 
best  of  our  plant  and  animal  industries  have  to  do  with  imported 
stock, — but  your  minerals  are  just  as  they  were  originally  laid 
down,  and  you  take  them  as  you  find  them.  It  is  the  minerals 
that  have  moved  man,  not  man  the  minerals.  Again,  the  minerals 
cannot  be  "  raised  "  ;  they  must  ultimately  become  exhausted, 
while  the  domestic  plants  and  animals  may  be  made  to  increase 
at  the  will  of  man.  Once  again,  the  factors  of  environment  — 
climate,  rainfall  —  which  determine  organic  life  have  no  influence 
whatever  upon  the  minerals.  Coal  occurs  in  any  latitude  whatso- 
ever, irrespective  of  present-day  climate  ;  and  if  this  is  true  of 
coal,  which  is,  in  origin,  organic,  it  is  not  surprising  in  the  case 
of  the  other  minerals.  The  conditions  favorable  to  the  opening 
and  development  of  a  mine  are  the  presence  of  p()])ulation  and 

'S3 


154  INDI'SIRV  AM)  TRADE 

good  transportation,  and  if  the  mine  is  rich  enough  it  is  likely 
to  suninn)n  such  conditions  into  existence. 

Metallic  and  nonmetallic  minerals.  The  minerals  of  commerce 
are  unevenly  distributed  over  the  earth.  Some  are  very  common, 
as,  for  instance,  coal  and  iron  ;  others,  as  tin,  nickel,  and  platinum, 
are  extremely  localized.  Minerals  may  be  classified  conveniently 
into  metallic  and  nonmetallic.  The  former  comprise  iron,  cop- 
per, gold,  silver,  lead,  quicksilver,  zinc,  aluminum,  and  antimony. 
There  are  to  be  found  in  the  United  States  alone  over  fifty  non- 
metallic  minerals ;  among  them  it  is  coal  and  petroleum  that  form 
the  big  items  in  industry  and  commerce.  In  our  annual  output 
of  minerals,  which  is  valued  at  about  two  billion  dollars,  the 
nonmetallic  minerals  exceed  the  metallic  in  value. 

Importance  of  the  mining  industry.  Imposing  as  is  our  annual 
output  of  minerals  in  amount  and  value,  it  is  worth  only  from 
one  fifth  to  one  third,  on  the  average,  of  our  farm  production  ; 
every  year  the  corn  crop  alone  exceeds  in  value  all  the  non- 
metallic  minerals  mined.  However,  the  actual  value  in  dollars 
of  the  products  of  a  country's  mines  is  no  index  of  the  relative 
importance  of  the  mineral  industry  as  compared  with  other  pur- 
suits within  the  nation.  If  it  were,  mining  would  have  to  be  con- 
sidered a  secondary  American  industry.  But  it  is  clear  enough 
that  the  progress  of  agriculture,  manufacture,  and  commerce  is.  in 
large  degree  dependent  upon  the  use  of  minerals  ;  progress  in 
civilization  in  general  has  regularly  depended  upon  their  presence. 
With  such  considerations  in  mind,  the  reader  will  see  that  mere 
size  and  value  of  immediate  product  is  not  the  decisive  fact  about 
an  industry,  and  that  the  mineral  industries  have,  in  a  sense, 
another  sort  of  product  that  can  scarcely  be  measured  ;  namely, 
the  basis  and  support  which  they  lend  to  most  other  industries. 
This  is  particularly  marked  in  the  case  of  coal  and  iron,  for  upon 
these  modern  civilization  really  rests,  and  without  them  it  could 
not  have  become,  nor  could  it  remain,  what  it  is.  Evidence  for 
these  general  statements  will  appear  as  we  go  on  to  consider  the 
various  mineral  industries  of  the  countr}'  in  a  more  special  way. 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM  155 

Coal 

Nature  of  coaL  Co^l  is  what  was  originally  a  vegetal  deposit, 
laid  down  ages  ago  and  subjected  to  great  pressure  ;  its  existence 
and  use  remained  unknown  to  man  up  to  relatively  recent  times. 
European  travelers  in  the  early  Middle  Ages  reported  that  the 
Chinese  burned  black  stones,  which  smoldered  and  remained 
alight  all  night.  There  are  two  kinds  of  coal  in  common  use  : 
the  bituminous,  or  soft,  and  the  anthracite,  or  hard.  The  former 
contains  from  85  to  88  per  cent  of  carbon,  lights  easily,  and 
burns  with  a  bright  flame.  The  latter  is  much  denser  in  struc- 
ture ;  it  contains  up  to  95  per  cent  of  carbon,  lights  with  con- 
siderable difficulty,  and  burns  wdth  a  bluish  flame  while  kindling. 
Another  variety,  called  lignite  or  brown  coal,  is  of  much  less  use 
in  industry  than  either  soft  or  hard  coal  ;  it  contains  only  about 
70  per  cent  of  carbon.  Soft  coal  is  used  for  the  generation  of 
steam,  while  hard  coal  is  used  for  domestic  heating  and  cooking, 
especially  in  the  eastern  part  of  this  country. 

Soft  and  hard  coaL  Soft  coal  is  mined  chiefly  in  Pennsylvania, 
but  a  good  deal  is  produced  by  West  Virginia,  Illinois,  and  Ohio. 
The  largest  field,  called  the  Appalachian,  extends  900  miles,  from 
New  York  to  Alabama,  with  a  width  of  from  30  to  180  miles. 
A  second  field  runs  through  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  and  a 
third  across  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  western  Kentucky.  Hard  coal 
is  mined  in  Pennsylvania,  where  there  is  an  anthracite  area  of 
nearly  500  square  miles.  The  largest  vein,  called  "The  Mam- 
moth," was  once  40  feet  thick,  but  has  been  almost  mined  away. 
It  is  necessary  now  to  work  the  thinner  veins,  and  the  coal,  unless 
carefully  picked  over,  is  likely  to  be  full  of  slate  and  other  stone. 

Early  use  of  coaL  The  colonists,  of  course,  got  most  of  their 
fuel  from  the  forests.  It  was  not  till  1750  that  coal  was  dis- 
covered, near  Richmond,  Virginia,  and  not  much  was  done  with 
coal-mining  until  after  the  Revolution,  when  there  were  shipments 
made  to  Philadelphia,  New  ^^)rk,  and  lioston.  Coal  was  found 
near  Pittsburgh  before  1760  and  was  in  general  use  in  the  regions 


156 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


near  the  mines,  both  for  manufacturing  and  household  purposes, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Anthracite  was  dis- 
covered near  Wilkesbarre,  Pennsylvania,  in  1762,  but  there  was 
great  difficulty  in  getting  it  into  the  market.  The  people  of  the 
time  could  not  make  it  burn,  and  the  first  successful  users  were 

blacksmiths.  Later  on  it 
was  the  invention  of  es- 
pecially adapted  grates,  as 
well  as  the  discovery  that 
an  anthracite  fire  ought 
not  to  be  poked  all  the 
time,  that  helped  its  prog- 
ress. Yet  365  tons  from 
the  Lehigh  district  were 
enough,  even  as  late  as 
1820,  to  meet  the  de- 
mand. By  183 1  the  ship- 
ments from  this  region 
reached  40,000  tons. 

The  use  of  coal  to  smelt 
iron.  Thus  the  produc- 
tion of  coal  for  commer- 
cial purposes  goes  back, 
in  this  country,  scarcely 
a  hundred  years.  The 
Virginia  deposits,  near 
Richmond,  were  the  first 
to  be  regularly  mined  ;  48,000  tons  were  taken  out  in  1822,  and 
140,000  tons  in  1833.  Since  coal  is  a  bulky  and  heavy  article 
for  its  price,  only  the  mines  which  were  near  natural  or  artificial 
transportation  facilities  could  be  developed.  It  was  not  until  coal 
was  used  in  smelting  iron  on  a  large  scale,  and  until  the  railroads 
had  been  built  to  carry  coal  to  iron-smelting  works,  that  the  pro- 
duction of  coal,  especially  of  soft  coal,  received  an  impetus.  The 
anthracite  variety  got  a  start  over  the  bituminous  because  the 


EARLY  L'SE  OF  COAL  AT  BLACKSMITH  S 
FORGE 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM 


157 


companies  which  first  produced  anthracite  were  also  building  the 
first  railroads  and  canals.  Until  about  1840  the  only  fuel  used 
in  our  blast  furnaces  was  charcoal ;  although  England  had  dis- 
carded it  early  in  the  century,  our  abundant  forests  and  the  relative 
ease  of  transporting  wood 
caused  us  to  retain  it.  When 
we  first  began  to  use  coal  in 
the  manufacture  of  pig  iron 
the  iron  industry  was  at  once 
revolutionized.  But  anthracite 
was  the  principal  coal  used  at 
first ;  the  year  1855  was  the 
one  when  anthracite  first  sur- 
passed charcoal.  Bituminous 
coal  overtook  charcoal  in  1869 
and  anthracite  in   1875. 

Coal  and  the  railroads.  The 
other  great  factor  which  caused 
the  remarkable  growth  of  the 
bituminous-coal  industry  was 
the  rapid  development  of 
American  railways,  especially 
after  the  Civil  War.  This 
affected,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  eastern  and  central  coal 
states  —  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Illinois.  It  in- 
creased the  demand  for  iron 
in  railroad    construction,  thus 

involving  the  need  of  more  coal,  and  it  also  opened  up  the 
westward  shipment  of  coal,  both  for  the  railroads  themselves  and 
also  for  the  industries  that  sprang  up  with  the  advent  of  the 
railroads.  The  close  connection  between  the  growth  of  our  rail- 
way system  and  that  of  the  coal  industry  is  easily  seen.  In  a 
country  like  this,  where  distances  arc  very  great,  the  fact  that 


COKIi  OVENS  AT   rnTSBUHGH, 
PENNSYLVANIA 


T5S  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

coal  constitutes  the  largest  item  of  railroad  expenditure  causes 
rail\va)s  to  become  interested  from  the  very  beginning  in  getting 
fuel  at  the  cheapest  possible  cost.  The  great  development  of  the 
iron  and  steel  industry  in  the  latter  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tur)',  and  its  continued  advance  since  the  opening  of  the  twentieth 
century,  have  greatly  stimulated  the  demand  for  coal.  The 
amount  of  iron  manufactured  by  the  use  of  anthracite  has  con- 
tinued to  decline,  while  the  use  of  bituminous  has  steadily  in- 
creased. This  change  was  greatly  stimulated  by  the  use  of  coke, 
a  residue  of  hard  carbon  left  after  heating  certain  grades  of  soft 
coal  in  ovens  under  a  limited  air  supply.  There  are  certain  of 
our  grades  of  coal,  especially  those  of  the  Connellsville  region 
of  western  Pennsylvania,  which  show  superior  coking  qualities. 
Coke  has  come  to  be  used  more  and  more  in  the  manufacture 
of  pig  iron,  until  over  90  per  cent  of  this  product  is  thus  made. 

Development  of  our  coal  production.  The  total  amount  of  coal 
extracted  from  our  mines  up  to  and  including  1845  is  estimated 
to  have  been  27,700,000  tons,  but  1846  saw  a  product  of  S,ooo,- 
000  tons;  1850,  one  of  7,000,000;  1875,  one  of  52,000,000; 
1900,  one  of  270,000,000;  and  the  present  period  a  yearly  out- 
put of  over  500,000,000  tons,  of  which  less  than  100,000,000  are 
of  anthracite.  The  total  amount  extracted  from  coal  mines  up  to 
1914  was  2,537,517,000  short  tons  of  anthracite  and  7,820,- 
167,000  of  bituminous,  and  the  quantity  still  remaining  to  be 
mined  is  estimated  as  about  99.5  per  cent  of  the  original  supply. 

Our  consumption  of  coal.  The  per  capita  increase  in  the  con- 
sumption of  coal  in  the  United  States  has  proceeded  at  a  rapid, 
not  to  say  a  spendthrift,  rate.  It  was  less  than  a  quarter  of  a 
ton  per  year  in  1850,  while  it  is  now,  despite  the  increase  of 
population,   more  than  five  tons. 

Waste  and  conservation  of  coal.  We  have  been  and  are  still 
wasteful  in  our  employment  of  this  great  and  never-to-be-replaced 
natural  resource,  both  in  the  mining  and  in  the  use  of  it.  There 
is  great  waste  in  mining :  pillars  of  coal  are  left  to  hold  up  the 
walls,  and  thinner  layers  are  disregarded ;   and  it  is  even  worse 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM  159 

when  the  pillars  are  robbed  of  their  coal  without  being  replaced 
by  other  supports.  For  every  ton  of  coal  mined  and  marketed, 
perhaps  as  much  as  half  a  ton  is  lost  through  waste  in  mining. 
Some  of  this  is  inevitable,  however.  The  so-called  "'  beehive  " 
coke  ovens  are  wasteful,  and  there  are,  all  along  the  line,  other 
leakages  from  this  store  of  resources.  The  consumer  is  wasteful 
also  :  imperfect  combustion  is  common  ;  the  full  utilization  of  the 
energy  stored  in  the  coal  is  neglected.  The  feeling  has  been  that 
there  is  an  exhaustless  plenty  of  this  stuff  and  that  it  is  cheap  — 
so  cheap,  in  fact,  that  it  is  more  economical  to  save  the  time 
and  effort  necessary  to  realize  economies  of  material.  This  sort 
of  thing  can  continue  in  a  new  land  with  abundant  natural 
resources,  but  there  are  unmistakable  signs  that  our  country  is 
no  longer  a  new  one  and  that  we  have  to  give  up  some  of 
the  happy-go-lucky  habits  of  our  past.  We  shall  presently  be 
obliged  to  imitate  certain  of  the  ways  of  people  of  older  coun- 
tries, which  we  have  viewed  with  amused  and  lofty  contempt. 
Over  the  coal  fields,  and  over  the  coal  bins  as  well,  there  is 
being  extended  that  movement  for  the  conservation  of  natural 
resources  of  which  we  have  spoken  from  time  to  time. 

Coal  is  indispensable.  For  if  one  looks  about  him  with  a  see- 
ing eye  he  will  observe  that  coal  is  something  that  stands,  in  a 
very  real  way,  between  modern  nations  and  national  decline  — 
yes,  national  annihilation.  Practically  all  our  industries,  by  which 
we  prosper,  and  even  live,  would  be  impossible  without  this 
natural  substance.  We  can  never  hope  to  carry  on  our  big  indus- 
trial operations  with  wood  as  a  fuel,  even  if  we  had  the  wood, 
which  we  have  not.  On  the  wood  supply  we  could  not  even,  for 
many  years,  keep  ourselves  warm  enough  to  live.  But  the  only 
other  fuel  is  coal.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  in 
climates  where  fire  is  needed  for  living,  coal  has  a  large  fraction 
of  the  indispensable  quality  which  we  usually  associate  with  air 
and  water.  Once  the  race  got  along  without  coal  and  did  not  abso- 
lutely need  it,  but  later  on  people  got  it  and  proceeded  to  build 
upon  it  as  a  necessity  of  life,  until  conditions  have  become  such 


i6o  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

that  it  is  indispensable  for  life.  Once,  too,  early  man  did  not 
know  how  to  make  fire  ;  but  later  he  learned  how,  and  the  result 
has  been  that  men  are  now  living  in  many  places  on  the  earth 
where  they  could  not  exist  without  fire.  It  is  impossible  now  to 
go  back  to  the  fireless  age  —  even  the  "  fireless  cooker"  needs 
tire  to  begin  on.  Coal  made  possible  the  development  of  a 
whole  industrial  and  social  system  which  was  impossible  without 
it.  The  size  of  population  has  increased  in  dependence  upon  this 
system.  The  system  could  not  persist  without  the  coal,  and  so 
the  population  and  the  living  could  not  go  on  without  it. 

The  need  of  economy  in  the  use  of  coal.  This  is  what  we  mean 
when  we  say  that  the  failure  of  coal  would  mean,  as  things  now 
are,  national  decline  and  annihilation.  But  coal,  thus  important  for 
human  life,  is  a  substance  limited  in  quantity  on  the  earth  ;  there 
may  be  huge  deposits  of  it,  but  when  used  up  it  is  not  renewed, 
thus  differing  from  air  and  water  in  a  very  serious  respect.  There- 
fore it  behooves  human  beings,  in  the  interest  of  future  genera- 
tions, to  use  this  priceless  commodity,  cheap  though  it  seems  to 
be,  with  the  least  possible  waste.  It  is  already  clear  that  the 
future  is  going  to  be  less  easy-going  with  us  than  the  past  has 
been  ;  as  the  big  coal  veins  are  used  up  and  the  smaller  ones 
have  to  be  mined,  the  cost  of  coal,  especially  anthracite,  must 
steadily  rise.  The  realization  of  these  facts  may  serve  as  a  hint 
to  a  well-meaning  but  thoughtless  people. 

Petroleum 

Early  uses  of  petroleum.  It  is  highly  probable  that  petroleum 
("rock  oil")  in  some  forms  was  in  common  use  two  or  three 
thousand  years  before  Christ.  The  Egyptians,  Greeks,  and 
Romans  appear  to  have  been  familiar  with  some  forms  of  petro- 
leum, such  as  bitumens.  "  Sicilian  oil  "  was  used  for  illumination 
by  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  Era,  having  been  formerly 
employed  for  burning  in  the  lamps  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter.  In 
the  Far  East  also  bitumens  have  been  in  use  for  ages ;  the  Baku 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM  i6i 

deposits  of  petroleum  have  been  known  and  utilized,  in  one  form 
or  another,  for  a  very  long  time.  Oil  from  the  ground,  which 
was  capable  of  burning  brightly,  would  have  impressed  any  primi- 
tive people  as  something  supernatural,  and  it  is  not  at  all  surprising 
that  it  should  early  have  figured  in  religious  ceremonies. 

A  medicine  and  a  nuisance.  There  is  evidence  that  petroleum 
was  known  and  used  by  the  Indians  before  the  Discovery  ;  at  any 
rate  there  are  legends  to  this  effect.  It  is  characteristic  of  savages 
and  half-civilized  people  that  such  a  substance  should  be  adopted 
as  a  medicine.  The  Seneca  Indians  gathered  small  quantities  of 
petroleum,  which  they  found  in  the  springs  ;  and  since  the  white 
settlers  became  acquainted  with  this  substance  through  the  Sen- 
ecas,  they  knew  it,  for  more  than  a  century,  by  the  name  of  "  Seneca 
oil."  Attempts  were  made  to  introduce  it  among  the  whites  as  a 
medicine,  but  in  spite  of  the  prevalent  idea  that  a  medicine, 
to  be  effective,  must  smell  and  taste  abominably  the  bad  odor 
and  taste  of  petroleum  made  against  its  popularity.  Then  came 
the  salt-makers,  who  were  troubled  more  or  less  with  petroleum 
in  their  brine.  They  had  to  dig  deeper  and  deeper  for  salt  as 
the  demand  increased  with  population,  and  finally  began  drilling 
wells.  This  was  over  a  century  ago.  Some  of  these  wells  yielded 
more  oil  than  brine,  but  it  was  regarded  as  a  nuisance  by  the 
well-owners,  who  used  all  sorts  of  devices  to  get  rid  of  what  turned 
out  to  be  a  new  natural  resource. 

Early  steps  in  the  industry.  Attempts  to  bottle  petroleum  and 
sell  it  as  a  medicinal  water,  as  well  as  projects  to  sell  it  as  an 
illuminant,  were  failures  —  the  evil  odor  and  other  disagreeable 
qualities  worked  against  it.  In  the  meantime,  however,  attempts 
were  being  made  to  distill  oil  from  coal  and  shale,  such  oils 
not  having  the  repulsive  qualities  of  petroleum  ;  the  results  of 
these  attempts  suggested  the  possibilities  of  purifying  the  rock 
oil.  But  as  there  were  no  real  oil  wells  the  supply  of  crude  oil 
was  insufficient  to  lend  much  encouragement.  Skimming  water 
surfaces  or  deriving  a  small  amount  from  brine  wells  was  a 
discouraging  process. 


1 62 


INDISTRY  AND  TRADE 


The  coming  of  the  oil  era.  It  was  1854  before  there  was  an 
oil  company  —  the  rcnnsylvania  Rock  Oil  Company  —  which  made 
the  petroleum  industry  its  business.  Incorporated  in  New  York, 
its  property  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  five  acres  of  Watson's 
Flats,  near  Titusville,  Pennsylvania,  including  an  island  where 
Oil  Creek  and  Pine  Creek  joined.  For  eight  or  nine  years  oil  had 
been  gathered  on  this  island  from  surface  pits.    In  1857,  after 

the  expenditure  of  con- 
siderable money  by  the 
original  promoters,  these 
properties  were  taken 
over  by  a  company  organ- 
ized in  Connecticut,  and 
a  plan  was  soon  developed 
of  increasing  the  yield  of 
crude  oil  by  well-drilling. 
Edwin  L.  Drake,  a  con- 
ductor on  the  New  Haven 
Road,  was  put  in  charge. 
After  a  year  of  conflict 
with  great  difficulties  he 
managed  to  reach  petro- 
leum in  the  first  sand, 
thirty-three  feet  through 
rock  and  almost  seventy  feet  below  the  surface.  When  the  pump 
was  applied,  it  was  found  that  the  well  produced  at  the  rate  of 
twenty-five  barrels  a  day.  This  was  in  August,  1859,  which  date 
marks  the  beginning  of  the  real  petroleum  era  in  this  country  and 
in  the  world  at  large. 

The  oil  craze.  There  followed  a  period  of  great  excitement, 
recalling  the  gold  strike  in  California  ten  years  earlier.  About 
1 860  western  Pennsylvania  w^as  the  scene  of  immense  activity  and 
speculation.  Adventurers  from  all  parts  of  the  country  hurried 
there  and  sunk  wells  in  great  numbers.  Camps  and  towns  rose 
out  of  the  primeval  forest  all  through  this  so-called  "  oil  region." 


DRAKE  S  OIL   WELL 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM 


163 


Some  of  the  wells  promptly  gave  out  and  the  population  shifted 
elsewhere,  so  that  certain .  towns  which  had  sprung  up  as  if  by 
magic  vanished  almost  as  quickly  as  they  had  appeared.  Pithole 
City,  which  in  1865  was  the  largest  post  office  in  the  state,  next 
to  Philadelphia,  has  now  disappeared  altogether ;  its  site  became 
a  farm. 

Rapid  development.  For  about  fifteen  years  after  the  successful 
driving  of  Drake's  well  Pennsylvania  produced  almost  all  the 
crude  oil  for  the  country,  but  about  1885  the  first  important 
development  outside  of  this  state  took  place  —  in  the  Lima  field 


FILLING    ISAKRELS    WITH    OIL 


of  northwestern  Ohio.  Men  were  searching  for  natural  gas  when 
they  discovered  oil.  The  development  was  rapid  ;  four  years  later 
millions  of  barrels  were  being  turned  out  annually.  One  by  one 
other  fields  were  opened  up,  each  contributing  its  share  in  the 
development  of  a  huge  industry.  An  increase  of  a  hundredfold 
or  a  thousandfold  in  a  few  years  has  been  typical  of  the  develop- 
ment, but  it  has  not  been  possible  to  rest  content  at  any  stage. 
The  oilman's  creed,  we  are  told,  is  to  drill  unceasingly  in  new 
fields  and  old. 

Grades  of  oil.  The  oil  areas  of  the  ITnited  States  are  grouped 
in  certain  fields,  largely  on  the  basis  of  geographical  position, 
but  the  grouping  is  coming  to  be  based  more  and  more  on  fun- 
damental differences  in  the  type  of  oil  produced.  The  oils  of 
the  Appalachian  field  are  mainly  of  paraffin  base  and  free  from 


l64  INDUSIRV  AM)    JRADK 

asphalt  and  other  undesirable  elements.  They  yield  by  ordinary 
refining  methods  high  percentages  of  gasoline  and  illuminating 
oils.  The  Lima-Indiana  oils  and  those  of  Illinois  contain  greater 
quantities  of  undesirable  elements,  while  the  mid-continent  variety 
varies  within  wide  limits.     Oils  from  the  Gulf  field  are  likely  to 


FILLING    A   SHIP   WITH    OIL    BY   MEANS   OF   PIPES 

have  more  asphalt,  while  the  Wyoming  and  Colorado  product 
is,  in  the  main,  of  parafifin  base  and  submits  to  the  ordinary 
refining  methods. 

Oil  production.  This  country  contributes  about  60  per  cent  of 
the  world's  product.  Of  our  production  the  Appalachian  field 
accounts  for  about  9  per  cent,  the  Illinois  for  about  8.25  per  cent, 
the  mid-continent  for  nearly  i"]  per  cent,  and  the  California  for 
over  37  per  cent. 

Developments  connected  with  the  industry.  The  development 
of  the  petroleum  industry  has  had  a  marked  effect  on  the  eco- 
nomic and  social  life  of  this  country  and  on  that  of  the  whole 


COAL  AND  PETROLEUM  165 

civilized  world.  The  various  commercial  products  of  petroleum  — 
such  as  kerosene,  gasoline,  benzene,  naphtha,  lubricating  oils, 
paraffin,  asphalt,  and  various  by-products  such  as  vaseline  and 
candles  —  are  now  in  common  use,  and  many  of  these  products 
are  considered  to  be  necessities  ;  yet  about  half  a  century  ago 
they  were  not  to  be  had  and  the  need  of  them  had  not  been 
dreamed  of.  Our  country  is  the  great  exporter  of  petroleum 
products  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  oil  lamp  is  an  example 
of  an  invention  summoned  into  being  by  the  industry,  and  now 
going  out  as  other  illuminants  have  superseded  it.  This  lamp 
was  largely  an  American  product.  Kerosene,  when  used  as  sperm 
oil  had  been,  gave  off  a  red  flame,  much  smoke,  and  an  offensive 
odor,  but  American  ingenuity  developed  the  burner  and  chimney 
to  clarify  the  flame  and  avoid  the  smoke  and  odor ;  it  was  per- 
fected by  i860,  part  of  the  work  of  perfecting  it  being  due 
to  Austrians. 

Pipe  lines  and  Standard  OiL  There  is  another  aspect  of  the 
influence  of  the  petroleum  industry  on  our  national  life,  connected 
with  its  transportation.  Special  tank-cars  and  oil-containers  had 
to  be  developed.  The  barrel  was  soon  outgrown,  even  as  a  con- 
tainer at  the  wells.  Then  came  the  development  of  pipe  lines 
conducting  the  crude  oil  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  refinery.  But 
this  enabled  the  discoverers  of  this  method  —  which  demanded 
much  capital  and,  after  being  built,  constituted  a  monopoly  —  to 
squeeze  out  the  smaller  producers  and  to  form  one  of  the  most 
powerful  trusts  in  the  world  —  the  Standard  Oil.  Immense  gains 
have  been  made  by  this  corporation,  but,  with  all  its  profits,  it 
has  over  and  over  again  reduced  the  price  of  oil. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


IRON 


Iron  in  antiquity.  Iron  ore  is  widely  distributed  throughout 
the  world  ;  probably  no  other  mineral  except  aluminum  occurs 
in  such  abundance.  No  one  knows  when  iron  was  first  used  by 
man,  for  iron  rusts  away  easily  and  does  not  remain,  like  flint, 
or  even  copper,  to  bear  evidence  of  the  life  of  prehistoric  ages. 
But  it  is  probable  that  man  learned  to  use  the  metal  in  extremely 
early  times.  In  any  case  both  Assyrians  and  Egyptians  had  it 
many  centuries  before  Christ ;  in  a  dry  climate  like  that  of  Egypt 
iron  rusts  away  slowly,  and  so  a  few  ancient  iron  implements 
have  been  found.  Also  there  are  many  savage  tribes  known 
whose  members  are  on  a  plane  of  civilization  much  lower  than 
that  of  our  remote  predecessors  but  who  are  able  to  smelt  a  very 
good  variety  of  iron  and  to  make  all  sorts  of  efficient  tools  and 
weapons  from  it.  It  is  reasonable  to  argue  that  if  such  people 
had  arrived  at  the  iron  stage,  certainly  ancient  peoples  much 
superior  to  them  in  culture  must  have  done  so.  And  the  oldest 
literature  of  which  w-e  know  mentions  iron  as  an  everyday 
familiar    object. 

Early  stages  of  the  industry.  However,  it  seems  quite  clear 
that  the  use  of  iron  was  not  known  in  America  previous  to  the 
Discovery.  What  metal  implements  the  Indians  possessed  were 
of  copper.  The  iron  was  here,  but  all  the  knowledge  and  skill 
needed  to  make  it  available  had  to  await  the  coming  of  the  white 
man.    And  the  first  form  used  was  largely  so-called  "bog  iron." 

i66 


IRON 


167 


For  a  long  time  the  iron  used  in  New  England  was  not  mined, 
but  derived  from  the  lakes  and  ponds  that  abound  in  that  section. 

Smelting.  Genuine  iron  ore,  in  order  to  be  available  for  man, 
has  to  be  smelted  ;  thus  the  iron  is  obtained  from  the  ore  and 
freed  of  impurities.  Of  course  the  fuel  used  earliest  was  wood  ; 
the  savage  African  made  an  underground  retort,  with  alternate 
layers  of  ore  and  fuel,  and  assisted  the  combustion  by  the  use 
of  a  blowpipe,  worked  with  rude  hand 
bellows.  Later  in  the  development 
of  the  industry,  and  lasting  down  to 
modern  times,  came  the  use  of  char- 
coal. This  was  the  colonial  method. 
The  ore  was  placed  in  a  bed  of  ignited 
charcoal,  whose  heat  readily  reduced 
it  to  a  lump  of  metallic  iron,  one 
end  of  which  could  be  hammered  and 
drawn  out  into  a  bar.  The  product  was 
"wrought,"  or  "malleable"  iron,  or 
"  bloom."  Out  of  this  still  rude  proc- 
ess was  gradually  developed  the  blast 
furnace,  whose  product  was  obtained 
in  fluid  condition  and  run  into  sand 
molds,  forming  "  pigs."  Other  spe- 
cially constructed  molds  were  needed 
to  form  castings  of  various  shapes. 
But  the  metal  thus  obtained  was  hard  and  brittle  ;  it  was  "  cast," 
as  distinguished  from  malleable  iron.  However,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  the  blast  furnace  speedily  became  the  regular  agency  for 
getting  the  metal  from  the  ore,  its  typical  product,  the  pig,  has 
become  the  rough  standard  for  measuring  iron  production.  Out 
of  this  raw  form  comes  practically  all  the  finished  iron  and  steel. 

The  colonial  iron  industry.  Having  indicated  the  general  lines 
of  development  in  the  process  of  ore  treatment,  we  now  return 
to  the  colonial  iron  industry.  Aside  from  the  collection  of  bog 
iron,   there  was  some  little  mining  and  smelting  in  Virginia  by 


A    I'.LAST    FU  KNACK 


i68 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


the  early  colonists,  but  it  did  not  last.  The  Salisbury  iron  beds 
in  Connecticut  were  among  the  first  to  be  worked  steadily  ;  they 
were  famous  in  their  day,  and  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  were 
the  source  of  an  important  industry.  Anchors  and  cannon  were 
made  there  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  and  in  large  numbers 
for  that  age,  likewise  many  flintlock  muskets.  New  Jersey, 
Pennsvlvania.   North   Carolina,  and   ]\Iar}'land  also  were  mining 

iron  ore  twenty  or 
thirty  years  prior  to 
the  Revolution.  In 
New  York,  however, 
the  opening  of  mines 
in  the  northern  part 
of  the  state  occurred 
only  after  1800. 

The  day  of  small 
things.  We  might  say 
that  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  iron  w-as 
being  used,  on  a  small 
scale  of  course,  in 
every  colony — in  fact, 
that  it  was  being  man- 
ufactured in  more 
places  in  the  country 
than  it  is  now.  It  was  the  day  of  small  things  and  of  poor  con- 
ditions of  transportation.  The  iron  that  was  needed  had  to  be 
produced  locally,  and  the  fact  that  the  ore  was  so  widely  dis- 
tributed made  such  local  manufacture  a  possibility.  It  must  be 
recalled  that  the  British  government  discouraged  the  manufacture 
of  iron,  not  wishing  the  English  industry  to  be  interfered  with  by 
competition  or  limitation  of  its  market.  This  forced  the  produc- 
tion into  out-of-the-way  localities,  since  the  regions  most  remote 
from  the  seaboard  were  less  likely  to  be  inspected  and  repressed. 
There  was  plenty  of  wood  at  hand,  and  so  wherever  there  was  any 


FILLING   PIG-IRON  MOLDS  WITH   MOLTEN   METAL 


IRON  169 

knowledge  of  smelting,  the  process  started  up  ;  and  the  product 
was  a  strong  and  excellent  quality  of  charcoal  iron.  It  was  rudely 
formed  into  such  articles  —  bars,  nails,  etc.  —  as  were  locally  in 
demand. 

Westward  movement.  During  the  half-century  or  more  follow- 
ing the  Revolution  very  little  progress  was  made  in  iron-making ; 
charcoal  was  still  used,  though  it  had  been  practically  abandoned 
in  England  by  1 800,  for  in  England  the  coal  and  iron  were  in  close 
proximity,  and  the  wood  was  coming  to  be  more  and  more  scarce 
in  some  of  the  smelting  districts.  There  was  also,  among  us,  little 
change  in  the  general  character  of  the  industry ;  it  was  still  local, 
although  it  had  spread  practically  all  over  the  country.  There 
were  fewer  plants  in  the  South,  but  the  industry  had  crossed  the 
mountains  and  was  growing  in  Ohio  as  early  as  1805.  By  1840 
furnaces  and  forges  were  numerous  throughout  the  Central  West. 
The  industry  was  kept  in  its  primitive  condition  chiefly  because 
of  the  vast  extent  of  the  country,  coupled  with  inadequate 
transportation  facilities. 

Conditions  prior  to  i860.  Down  to  the  year  1850  lead  and 
iron  were  the  only  metals  worth  mentioning  that  were  produced 
commercially  in  the  United  States.  The  output  of  iron  fell  off 
in  the  decade  1810  to  1820  from  54,000  to  20,000  tons;  in 
1830  it  was  165,000,  and  double  that  figure  in  1840.  There 
were  some  ups  and  downs  in  the  next  years,  but  it  touched 
800,000  tons  on  more  than  one  occasion.  In  i860  it  ran  over 
a  million  tons. 

The  use  of  hard  coal  for  smelting.  During  this  half-century 
Pennsylvania  was  preeminent  in  iron  production;  in  1840  she 
produced  more  than  three  times  as  much  as  New  York,  the  near- 
est rival ;  in  i860  over  half  of  the  iron  produced  in  the  country 
came  from  Pennsylvania.  This  state  was  much  advantaged  by  the 
changes  in  type  of  fuel.  Between  1840  and  1850  many  experi- 
ments were  being  made  with  coal,  both  bituminous  and  anthra- 
cite, but  it  was  1 849  before  the  anthracite  iron  became  important 
enough  to  set  the  standard  in  iron  quotations,  so  that  the  standard 


170  1M)L  Sl'RV  AM)    IRADE 

became  the  ton  of  anthracite  iron  instead  of  charcoal  iron.  In 
the  vear  1S54  the  two  fuels  had  jModuced  almost  the  same 
amount,   but  in    1S55   anthracite  was  40,000  tons  ahead. 

The  use  of  soft  coal.  This  success  was  quickly  neutralized  by 
the  entrance  of  bituminous  fuel.  This  fuel  was  in  common  use 
in  England  long  before  we  adopted  it ;  it  was  about  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  that  the  English  iron-makers  took 
up  the  use  of  coke  made  from  bituminous  coal,  but  it  was  not 
until  after  the  Civil  War  that  the  process  got  its  momentum 
here.  Anthracite  was  enabled  to  hold  out  because  it  was  easy  to 
get,  cheap,  and  showed  some  advantages  when  it  came  to  trans- 
portation ;  it  was  also  near  the  iron  region  (Lehigh)  where  the 
start  was  made.  But  as  soon  as  the  center  of  the  great  coke  in- 
dustry—  western  Pennsylvania — became  connected  with  the  East 
by  railroads,  the  geographical  advantage  of  the  anthracite  area 
w-as  at  an  end.  In  1875  the  bituminous  fuel  overtook  the  anthra- 
cite and  the  center  of  iron  production  shifted  just  across  the 
Appalachian  Mountains  to  the  basin  of  the  Ohio  River. 

Location  of  the  mining  regions.  The  iron  mines  upon  which 
the  industry  now  chiefly  depends  are  those  farther  to  the  west ; 
of  the  available  iron  ore  about  75  per  cent  is  in  the  Lake  Superior 
region.  It  may  be  stated  here  that  of  the  available  iron  ores  at 
least  half  are  owned  by  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation. 
This  Lake  Superior  region  (Michigan,  Minnesota,  Wisconsin)  con- 
tributes four  fifths,  and  the  Southern  District  (Alabama,  Georgia, 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  the  Virginias,  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
Arkansas,  Missouri,  Texas)  about  one  seventh,  of  the  total  annual 
output  of  ore  for  the  country.  The  old  Northern  District  (western 
New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Iowa) 
contributes  a  little  less  than  4  per  cent. 

The  demand  for  iron.  The  output  of  the  mines  since  1870  has 
increased  at  an  unparalleled  rate.  This  is  the  great  iron  age  : 
iron  is  used  for  railroads,  structural  purposes,  ships,  munitions, 
and  a  thousand  other  important  purposes.  We  arcv^so  used  to 
this  fact  that  w^e  fail  to  realize  the  amount  of  metal  needed  ;  but 


IRON 


171 


let  one  stand  by  a  railroad  track  and  realize  that  the  steel  strip 
on  which  he  places  his  foot  reaches  to  San  Francisco  without  a 
break  —  and  not  one  strip  alone,  either,  and  not  to  San  Fran- 
cisco alone  —  and  that  all  this  metal  has  had  to  be  mined  and 
worked  over  by  the  hand  of  man,  and  the  iron  industry  in  this 
country  begins  to  take  on  more  massive  and  imposing  outlines. 


AN"    IRON-MIMNf;    KEfJIOX   I\    MICHIGAN 

Advances  in  production.  Huge  quantities  of  the  metal  have 
been  demanded  for  huge  undertakings.  The  figures  for  per  capita 
consumption  show,  as  is  natural,  an  immense  rise.  The  present 
production  of  pig  iron  in  the  United  States  is  about  30,000,000 
long  tons,  worth  over  $400,000,000.  This  is  less  than  the  value  of 
our  wheat  crop,  but  among  minerals  it  is  exceeded  only  by  coal. 
The  world's  annual  production  of  pig  iron  is  about  63,000,000 
tons,  so  the  share  of  our  countr\-  in  iron  production  is  a  large  one. 

Factors  favorable  to  the  industry.  Less  than  fifty  years  ago 
the  United  Kingdom  was  preeminent  in  iron  and  steel  produc- 
tion, the  United  States  holding  second  pUice  but  far  behind  the 


172  INDUSTRY  AND  TKADK 

leader.  It  was  the  development  of  the  Lake  iron  region  and  the 
application  of  the  Bessemer  process  during  the  eighties  which 
really  established  the  American  steel  industry,  so  that  by  1890 
the  United  States  surpassed  all  rivals.  And  there  were  other  fac- 
tors which  helped  considerably :  an  abundant  supply  of  cheap  coke 
and  limestone ;  machine  methods  of  all  sorts  ;  plants  of  large 
capacity  under  a  highly  economic  system  ;  and  an  adequate  home 
market  entirely  controlled  by  home  manufacturers.  There  is  no 
manner  of  doubt  that  the  above  factors  have  strongly  contributed 
to  the  increase  of  the  industry,  however  much  one  may  be  inclined 
to  disapprove  the  presence  of  certain  of  them. 

The  war  demand  for  iron.  Here  we  have  infringed  somewhat 
upon  the  subject  of  manufacture  —  for  steel,  at  any  rate,  belongs 
to  that  topic  rather  than  to  the  present  one  —  and  thus  have 
anticipated  slightly  what  is  to  be  said  later  on.  It  remains  to  be 
noted  that  the  importance  of  iron  deposits  came  out  strikingly 
in  the  Great  War ;  the  control  of  such  deposits  was  a  bone  of 
bitter  contention  throughout  the  struggle.  Germany  early  seized 
the  iron  regions  of  northern  France,  and  it  has  been  stated  by  a 
high  French  official  that  the  enemy,  from  the  very  outset,  sought 
to  maintain  possession  of  the  French  deposits,  and  that  the 
attack  on  Verdun  was  for  the  purpose  of  confirming  and  per- 
petuating this  possession.  It  is  estimated  that  into  ever)'  acre 
in  the  vicinity  of  Verdun  an  average  of  fifty  tons  of  metal  — 
chiefly  iron  and  steel  —  have  been  shot,  the  whole  amount  being 
1,350,000  tons;  it  has  even  been  proposed  to  mine  it  out  again. 
And  Verdun  is  not  the  only  region  that  is  full  of  metal  from 
projectiles.  But  all  this  iron  and  steel  had  to  be  mined  some- 
where and  worked  up  into  proper  form.  When  an  idea  is  gained 
of  the  rain  of  shell  on  the  battle  fronts,  some  conception  of  the 
demand  upon  the  iron  deposits  can  be  attained.  All  this  looks 
like  gigantic  and  insane  waste,  but  it  is  worth  the  price  if  benefits 
that  are  not  material  are  purchased  by  losses  that  are  material. 


CHAPTER  XV 

GOLD  AND  SILVER 

The  twin  metals.  Gold  and  silver  have  been  mentioned  to- 
gether for  many  ages  as  the  precious  metals  ;  and  although  there 
are  now  a  number  of  more  costly  ones,  these  two  are  still 
commonly  linked  one  with  the  other.  Both  have  been  used 
for  ornament  and  both  for  money.  They  are  still  employed  for 
this  latter  purpose  in  civilized  countries,  although  for  most  such 
countries  gold  is  the  standard  of  value  and  silver  a  common 
coin  used  for  making  change. 


Gold 

Nature  of  gold.  This  is  a  widely  distributed  metal,  being  found 
in  almost  all  countries  of  the  world,  as  well  as  in  the  waters  of 
the  sea  ;  it  is  common  in  volcanic  districts.  It  occurs  in  various 
forms  —  as  veins  in  quartz,  as  nuggets,  and  in  so-called  "placer 
deposits "  (that  is,  in  small  particles,  or  dust,  mixed  in  with 
gravel  or  sand).  What  called  attention  to  gold  was  doubtless 
its  attractiveness  to  the  eye  of  the  childlike  savage  ;  and  it  has 
remained  alluring  to  the  discriminating  eye  of  the  civilized  man. 
It  is  also  durable,  neither  rusting  away  nor  otherwise  wasting  by 
chemical  change.  It  is  said,  doubtless  with  some  exaggeration, 
that  all  the  gold  that  has  ever  been  mined  is  now,  unconsumed, 
in  the  possession  of  the  race,  with  the  exception  of  that  which 
has,  by  shipwreck  or  otherwise,   been   lost.    The   metal   is   also 

173 


174 


INDUSTRY   AND  TRADE 


easy  to  work,  being  soft  and  ductile,  and  was  for  this  reason 
a  favorite  of  the  savage  peoples,  w^ho  had  difficulty  with  the 
harder  metals. 

Gold  coinage.  Gold  is  a  metal  which,  because  of  its  softness, 
suffers  much  from  abrasion  ;  it  is  therefore  ordinarily  alloyed  with 
copper  or  some  other  harder  metal,  the  grade  of  fineness  of  the 
compound  being  expressed  in  carats.    For  the  same  reason  gold 


INDIAN   JEWELRY   AND   ORNAMENTS  OF  GOLD 


has  to  be  alloyed  in  coins  ;  and  it  is,  indeed,  under  modern  con- 
ditions, not  very  well  suited  to  form  a  circulating  medium.  The 
coins,  unless  of  high  value,  are  too  small  and  are  usually  a 
nuisance  to  carry  about,  as  they  are  often  mistaken,  in  a  poor 
light,  for  coins  of  about  the  same  size  but  of  much  inferior  value. 
The  gold  certificate  circulates  much  more  freely  and  satisfactorily 
than  the  gold  coin,  while  for  small  values  silver,  nickel,  and 
copper  are  more  convenient. 

Indian  gold.  The  Indians  knew  gold  very  well  and  employed  it 
in  making  trinkets  of  a  more  or  less  crude  order,  although  some  of 
the  more  advanced  tribes  had  learned  to  form  it  into  images  and 


GOLD  AND   SILVER 


175 


artistic  shapes.  The  natives  of  Mexico  and  Peru  had  great  quanti- 
ties of  the  metal  which  were  looted  by  ruffian  conquerors  like 
Pizarro ;  the  ransom  of  the  Inca  is  reported  to  have  been  a  room- 
ful of  gold  articles  with  a  total  value  of  some  $15,000,000.  The 
Spanish  "  Silver  Fleet  "  sailed  regularly  from  the  Isthmus  to  Spain 
with  cargoes  of  precious  metals.  In  fact,  it  was  the  consuming 
desire  for  the  precious  metals, 
joined  to  the  hunger  for  gain 
from  the  spice  trade,  that  led 
to  the  voyages  of  discovery, 
culminating  in  those  of  Da 
Gama  and  Columbus.  And 
the  Spanish,  intent  upon  such 
ends,  neglected,  as  we  have 
said,  the  areas  we  now  call 
the  United  States  because 
they  afforded  no  promise  in 
this  direction. 

Increase  of  the  stock  of 
gold.  Although  gold  has  been 
known  so  long  the  amount 
mined  previous  to  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
comparatively  small ;  the  in- 
crease at  that  time  was  due  to 
the  opening  up  of  the  mines  of 
California  and  Australia.  There 
was  another  increase  betw^ccn  1900  and  1909,  but  since  then  the 
production  has  been  fairly  constant.  I'Vom  the  standpoint  of 
actual  value  as  compared  with  other  sources  of  earthly  wealth  the 
annual  output  of  gold  is  small  ;  it  is  worth  less  than  our  wheat, 
not  to  mention  corn.  But  it  must  be  recalled  that  all  gold  produc- 
tion is  a  permanent  addition  to  the  stock  already  gathered,  and 
since  prices  are  estimated  finally  in  gold  as  the  standard  of  value, 
an  increase  and  consequent  chca])ening  of  gold  means  rising  prices. 


OXK  OF  THE  Sl'AMSII       SILVER  FLEET 


176 


INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 


Processes.  The  increase  of  gold  has  been  possible  not  only 
because  of  the  discovery  of  new  deposits  but  also  because  of  the 
development  of  processes  for  the  profitable  treatment  of  ores  of 
a  lower  and  lower  grade.  At  first  all  gold-mining,  where  it  was 
not  merely  the  picking  up  of  larger  or  smaller  lumps,  was  placer- 
mining.  The  simplest  mechanical  device  for  separating  gold  parti- 
cles from  sand  was  a  pan,  in  which  the  sand  and  gold  were  shaken 


PLACER-AIIXIXG 


about  until  the  gold,  being  heavier,  sank  to  the  bottom  ;  thus, 
slowly  and  painfully,  the  metal  can  be  separated  out.  This  is 
called  panning.  Also  a  small  stream  of  water,  running  rapidly 
down  a  trough  or  sluice,  on  the  floor  of  which  cleats  have  been 
placed  at  intervals,  can  be  used.  The  gold-containing  earth  is 
thrown  in  and  the  gold  settles  in  the  depressions.  In  real  placer- 
mining  banks  of  earth  are  broken  down  by  a  powerful  stream  of 
water  from  a  hose  and  the  earth  treated  with  water  to  obtain  the 
gold  grains.  Dredging  consists  in  using  an  implement  not  unlike 
that  employed  in  deepening  channels  ;   the  earth  dredged  up  is 


GOLD  AND  SILVER 


177 


run  through  sluice  boxes.  These  processes  have  to  do,  of  course, 
with  gold  which  has  been  washed  out  of  its  original  setting  by 
natural  forces  ;  it  involves  much  less  investment  of  capital  than 
actual  mining. 

Improvement  of  processes.  But  when  gold-bearing  quartz  is 
mined,  the  masses  have  to  be  crushed  and  the  gold  collected  from 
the  pulverized  material.    Here  is  the  place  where  improvement  of 


I'A.WING    (iOLI) 


processes  has  appeared  most  notably.  There  were  formerly  inevi- 
table losses  in  the  mining  and  extraction  ;  much  waste  material, 
called  tailings,  was  rejected  and  cast  aside.  It  is  good  evidence 
of  the  improvement  in  processes  that  beds  of  tailings  have  been 
worked  over  with  profit  by  modern  methods  of  extraction.  The 
process  has  gone  on  until  it  seems  that  the  limit  of  the  lowering 
of  the  grade  of  ore  must  be  approaching,  for  in  some  instances 
two  thousand  pounds  of  material  are  being  mined  and  milled  to 
get  an  ounce  of  gold.  We  cannot  expect  that  the  grade  of  the 
ore  can  be  lowered  much  more  than  this. 


i/S 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


Development  of  the  industry.  In  our  colonial  times  gold-mining 
was  an  unimportant  industry.  The  deposits  in  the  eastern  part  of 
the  country  are  insignificant,  the  best  being  on  the  Atlantic  slope 
in  North  Carolina,  where,  in  1799,  a  large  lump  of  gold  was 
picked  up  —  the  first  indication  of  its  local  presence.  Grad- 
ually a  few  mines  were  opened  and  worked  in  a  crude  way,  but 
what  gold  was  obtained  came  chiefly  from  washings.  Later  on 
quartz-mining   was    pursued    to  a    limited   extent,   sometimes  at 

great  expense  but  not 
with  a  corresponding 
profit.  When  the 
gold  mines  of  Cali- 
fornia were  discov- 
ered, these  Eastern 
enterprises  were  al- 
most entirely  aban- 
doned. The  average 
annual  value  of  gold 
mined  in  the  United 
States  for  the  dec- 
ade 1 830- 1 840  was 
511,697,000.  Then 
came  the  California 
gold  strike,  in  1849,  and  the  yield  for  the  year  1850  was  in  the 
neighborhood  of  $50,000,000,  At  present  our  annual  product  is 
worth  about  double  this  sum,  having  remained  fairly  constant 
during  the  last  ten  years.  California  and  Colorado  are  by  far  the 
largest  producers,  with  Nevada  and  Alaska  as  important  contribu- 
tors.   In  the  preceding  figures  the  Alaskan  output  is  included. 

Silver 

The  high  value  placed  on  silver.  Silver  is  found  at  times  in 
a  native  state,  but  it  occurs  more  commonly  in  ores  along  with 
other  metals,  such  as  copper,  lead,  and  zinc.  It  is  therefore  not 
nearly  so  easily  obtained  as  is  gold  in  the  nugget  or  dust  form, 


A  (,mll)-(>uaki/  Li;i:siii-:ii 


GOLD  AND   SILVER  179 

and  this  accounts  for  the  fact  that  in  remote  antiquity  silver  was 
valued  equally  with  gold,  or  even  above  it.  This  metal  is  not  so 
well  known  among  savage  peoples  as  gold.  But  the  American 
Indians  were  well  acquainted  with  it,  especially  the  Mexican  and 
Peruvian  tribes  ;  the  latter  had  accumulated  the  vast  quantities  of 
it,  which,  along  with  the  gold,  worked  so  powerfully  upon  the 
cupidity  of  the  Spaniards.  Immense  quantities  of  silver  were  looted ; 
later,  immense  quantities  were  mined  by  the  conquerors  and  car- 
ried back  to  Spain  in  the  famous  "'  Silver  Fleet."  But  they  did  not 
turn  their  attention  to  the  lands  now  known  as  the  United  States. 

Colonial  silver-mining.  In  some  of  the  Eastern  colonies  silver 
in  small  quantities  and  mixed  with  lead  ore  was  found  about  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  such  a  vein  was  worked  with 
some  profit  in  Massachusetts,  and  a  number  of  other  states  in 
the  East  once  contained  rather  insignificant  silver  mines.  When 
the  population  moved  westward,  and  the  large  lead-ore  deposits 
of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Mississippi  were  discovered,  they  were 
found  to  contain  some  silver.  But  this  was  seldom  in  paying 
quantities,  for  in  the  earlier  days  of  silver-mining  the  metal 
could  not  be  extracted  from  the  ore  as  readily  as  at  the  present 
time.  In  1850,  of  the  silver  dollars  in  use,  99  per  cent  were  of 
Mexican  or  Peruvian  metal.  And  the  same  situation  existed  with 
respect  to  silver  plate.  Silver  had  been  coined  in  Massachusetts 
as  early  as  1652,  but  the  metal  has  regularly  been  an  import 
up  to  relatively  recent  years. 

Silver  discoveries.  The  amount  of  silver  produced  in  this 
country  up  to  1H34  is  officially  reported  as  "insignificant"  ;  from 
1834  to  1857  its  value  was  $868,000;  until  1859  the  annual 
value  was  less  than  $100,000.  The  critical  point  in  American 
silver-mining  was  the  discovery,  in  1859,  of  the  largest  deposit 
in  the  world.  This  was  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Sierra  Nevada. 
Between  1850  and  i860  prospectors  had  ranged,  for  the  most 
part  on  foot,  over  the  whole  Western  mountain  region.  They 
wandered  from  ledge  to  ledge,  picking  uj)  specimens  from  time 
to  time  and  cracking  them  or  reducing  bits  of  ore  with  charcoal 


ISO  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

and  blowpipe.  In  the  discovery  year  Henry  Phinney  and  Henry 
Comstock  chanced  upon  some  promising  silver  deposits  inter- 
spersed with  free  gold,  and  they  laid  a  claim  to  a  mine.  Phinney 
sold  out  to  Comstock  for  a  pinch  of  gold  dust,  and  Comstock 
himself  soon  sold  the  property.  Then  it  was  discovered  that 
marvelous  wealth  lay  hidden  away  in  this  claim,  and  the  tidings 
spread  like  lightning  over  not  only  the  United  States  but  the 
whole  civilized  world.  A  period  of  frantic  excitement  ensued, 
such  as  is  described  in  Mark  Twain's  "'  Roughing  It,"  and  there 
followed  a  great  inrush  of  people  and  the  growth  of  new  large 
towns,  notably  Virginia  City,  Carson  City,  and  Silver  City. 
Nevada  was  admitted  to  the  Union  in  1864,  and  the  Central 
Pacific  Railroad  was  extended  through  the  region,  passing  within 
twentv  miles  of  the  point  of  first  discovery. 

The  Comstock  Lode.  Between  1859  and  1866  it  is  said  that 
about  §70,000,000  worth  of  silver  was  taken  from  the  Comstock 
Lode  alone,  and  a  good  deal  of  gold  was  associated  with  the 
silver.  Between  1859  and  1876  about  $200,000,000  worth  of 
gold  and  silver  were  drawn  from  this  lode,  of  which  about 
$120,000,000  were  in  silver.  Within  a  few  years  subsequent  to 
the  big  initial  discovery  silver  had  been  found  in  considerable 
quantities  elsewhere  in  Nevada  and  in  neighboring  states.  The 
United  States  at  once  came  to  the  front  as  a  silver  producer ; 
at  the  present  day  Nevada,  Montana,  Utah,  and  Idaho  are  the 
states  of  greatest  yield.  In  1890  the  famous  lode  was  approach- 
ing exhaustion.  The  population  of  Virginia  City,  close  by,  had 
been  around  1 1,000  in  1880;  in  1908  it  was  about  2500.  If  any- 
one is  disposed  to  doubt  the  control  exercised  by  natural  resources 
over  national  destiny,  he  may  reflect  that  Nevada's  silver  added  a 
state  to  the  Union  and  two  senators  to  Congress.  Apart  from  the 
metallic  wealth  Nevada's  silver  regions  are  a  hopeless  desert. 

Silver  a  by-product.  Taking  the  world  as  a  whole,  at  the 
present  time  mining  for  silver  by  itself  is  uncommon.  It  is  done 
in  a  few  special  places  in  Canada,  the  United  States,  Mexico, 
and  South  America ;    but  the  greater  proportion  of  the  world's 


GOLD  AND   SILVER  i8r 

annual  output  of  silver  is  a  by-product  of  mining  for  the  baser 
metals,  in  particular  copper  and  lead. 

Silver  coinage.  It  remains  to  say  a  word  about  the  coining  of 
silver.  A  large  part  of  the  world's  silver  product  is  minted  ;  and 
until  towards  the  close  of  the  last  century  silver  was  the  princi- 
pal metal  coined  in  most  civilized  countries,  and  was  the  standard 
of  value  in  many  of  them.  Owing,  however,  to  the  fall  in  the 
price  of  silver  due  to  increased  production,  there  was  a  wide  dis- 
crepancy between  its  coinage  value  and  its  value  in  the  open 
market.  Silver  remains  admirably  adapted  for  small  circulating 
coins.  It  has  also  been  used  in  the  arts  from  early  times,  and 
finds  a  place  in  some  of  the  newer  ones,  like  photography. 


m^\.V..   .: 


;'>;■■    .  \'^i 


i4.|m 


CHAPTER  XVI 


OTHER  MINERALS 

Lesser  minerals.  There  are  several  other  minerals  which  are 
of  considerable  significance  in  the  economic  life  of  the  country 
but  which  have  not  been  deemed  worthy  of  separate  treatment, 
either  because  their  advent  is  too  recent  for  them  to  have  had  as 
yet  a  very  profound  influence  upon  the  development  of  our  indus- 
trial life  or  because  their  importance  is  one  with  narrow  rather 
than  wide  limits.  Such  minerals  are  copper,  lead,  zinc,  aluminum, 
clay  products,  building  stone,  cement,  lime,  phosphate  rock,  salt, 
mineral  waters,  slate,  and  others.  In  this  chapter  we  shall  briefly 
touch  upon  some  of  the  most  significant  of  these. 

Copper.  This  is  a  metal  second  only  in  importance  to  iron  for 
the  industrial  development  of  the  country ;  but  that  is  due  chiefly 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  indispensable  where  electricity  is  employed, 
for,  despite  much  investigation,  no  satisfactory  substitute  has 
appeared.  Consequently,  although  it  is  a  metal  that  has  long 
been  known,  the  rise  of  the  copper  industry  on  the  large  scale 
is  rather  modern.  The  metal  is  widely  distributed  over  the  earth, 
being  encountered  at  times  in  a  pure  state,  but  ordinarily  in  the 
form  of  ores.  It  is  alloyed  very  commonly  with  tin  and  zinc, 
these  alloys  forming  bronze  and  brass  respectively.  Since  it  can  be 
hammered  out  without  being  softened  by  heat,  it  afforded  to  savage 
man  what  was,  very  likely,  his  first  chance  to  use  metal ;  in  any 
case,  it  is  one  of  the  very  oldest  metals  known  and  has  been  used 
in  tool-making  and  in  the  arts  generally  since  remote  antiquity. 


OTHER  MINERALS 


1S3 


Indian  use  of  copper.  Along  with  other  uncivilized  peoples  the 
American  Indians  had  discovered  the  utility  of  copper ;  it  was 
the  one  metal  which  they  had  learned  to  put  to  practical  use. 
They  had  even  learned  to  harden  copper  so  as  to  be  able  to 
make  implements  from  it.  It  was  mined  in  a  rude  way  in  the 
Lake  Superior  region,  the 
masses  of  almost  pure  cop- 
per being  dug  out  and 
raised  upon  a  sort  of 
staging  until  they  could 
be  removed  from  the 
shallow  shafts.  It  has 
been  iron  and  steel  that 
have  driven  out  the  copper 
industry  as  civilization  has 
advanced  ;  but  the  Indian, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  not 
arrived  at  a  knowledge 
of  iron. 

Not  much  early  copper- 
mining.  Inasmuch  as  cop- 
per deposits  are  scattered 
widely  over  this  country, 
even  on  the  eastern  slopes 
of  the  Appalachians,  many 
discoveries  of  copper  were 
made  in  colonial  times;  in  general,  however,  the  comparatively 
few  attempts  to  work  the  deposits  were  abandoned  as  unremu- 
nerative.  Copper  was  found  in  Massachusetts  as  early  as  1648, 
and  was  smelted  by  imported  Swedish  workmen;  and  in  1709  a 
company  was  organized  to  work  a  copper  deposit  in  Connecticut. 
The  so-called  Schuyler  mine,  in  New  Jersey,  discovered  in  17 19, 
was  prominent  as  a  producer  prior  to  the  Revolution.  But  our 
output  of  the  metal  long  remained  small;  as  late  as  1S30  we 
produced  not  over   50  tons  a  year,  and  by   1S45  tliis  IkkI  risen 


INDIAX    IMPLEMENTS   AND    ARTICLES   MADE 
OF   COPPER 


COPPER   SMELTER  — LAKE    SUPERIOR   REGION 


A    COPPER-MIXIXG   DISTRICT   NEAR    BUTTK,    .MoXTAXA 
184 


OTHER  MINERALS 


185 


only  to  about  loo  tons.  If  these  figures  be  compared  with  the 
present  yield  of  over  500,000  tons,  some  idea  can  be  had  of  the 
newness  of  the  industr\'. 

The  Michigan  deposits.  For  a  long  time  the  Upper  Michigan 
deposits  were  the  great  source  of  our  copper ;  this  is  a  great 
native    copper    region,    following   without   a    break   the   axis   of 


MINING    COPPER   ORE    AT    P.UTTE,    MONTANA 


the  Keweenaw  Peninsula  for  a  distance  of  seventy  miles,  with  a 
width  of  from  three  to  six  miles.  The  Lake  Superior  region 
came  into  prominence  shortly  before  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  largely  in  consequence  of  the  "copper  fever"  —  a  sort 
of  popular  furor  of  1845  or  thereabouts.  Stories  of  the  great 
masses  of  pure  copper  to  be  found  in  this  region  had  unsettled 
the  judgment  of  many  people,  and  the  shores  of  the  copper 
peninsula  soon  teemed  with  prospectors  and  speculators.  Hun- 
dreds  of  copper-mining    companies    were    formed;   but  in   1847 


1 86 


INDITSTRV  AND  TRADE 


I'IGS    OF    LEAD 


the  bubble  burst,  and  only 
about  a  half-dozen  of  the 
strongest  companies  were 
able  to  withstand  the  col- 
lapse. The  yield  of  copper 
had  risen  from  something 
like  lOO  tons  in  1845  to 
650  in  1850,  largely  in  con- 
sequence of  the  opening 
of  the  Lake  Superior  dis- 
trict ;  but  this  was  only  a 
beginning  —  the  full  development  of  the  region  came  later  on. 
Montana  discoveries.  Then,  toward  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  came  the  Montana 
discoveries,  chiefly  in  the  Butte 
district,  and  Montana  soon 
came  to  surpass  Michigan  ;  but 
in  19 10  Arizona  took  the  lead. 
Here,  by  contrast  with  Michi- 
gan and  Montana  conditions, 
the  metal  comes  from  a  num- 
ber of  different  parts  of  the 
state.  We  now  lead  the  world 
in  copper-production. 

Lead.  Lead  is  seldom  found 
in  a  pure  state,  but  usually  as 
galena,  or  sulphide  of  lead  ; 
it  is  often  a  by-product  of 
silver  production.  It  has  been 
known  since  early  times,  and 
widely,  since  deposits  are  com- 
mon about  the  earth.  They 
are  common  in  this  country,  but  although  the  Indians  were  familiar 
enough  with  galena,  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  they  had 
found   out   how  to  reduce  the   ore   to  metal.     Long  before  the 


IN    A    /.l.\(      .MINE 


OTHER  MINERALS 


187 


Revolution  the  colonists  discovered  lead  and  made  attempts  to  work 
the  deposits.  In  the  eastern  parts  of  the  country  the  results  were 
poor.  Lead-mining  in  Missouri  (now  our  leading  state  in  that 
industry)  began  as  early  as  1720;  it  is  estimated  that  in  18 19 
there  were  forty-five  mines  in  Missouri.  At  the  present  time  the 
states  following  Missouri  are 
Idaho,  Utah,  and  Colorado. 
The  figures  for  lead  produc- 
tion, in  short  tons,  run  from 
1 5  00,  in  1 8  2  5 ,  to  over  5  00,000 
at  the  present  time. 

Zinc.  Zinc  occurs  along 
with  other  metals,  such  as  lead 
and  copper.  The  crude  metal 
is  called  spelter.  Spelter  pro- 
duction is  a  new  industry  in 
this  country ;  for  although 
zinc  was  known  to  exist  in 
colonial  New  Hampshire  and 
elsewhere,  little  was  mined, 
and  its  systematic  and  profita- 
ble production  dates  back  only 
a  few  years.  It  started  in  an 
experimental  way  in  1858, 
but  statistics  of  production 
before  1873  are  not  available. 

Thus,  as  compared  with  the  other  metal  industries  of  the  countiy, 
the  zinc  industry  is  of  late  development.  The  7000  tons  of  1873 
have  risen  to  124,000  tons  in  1900  and  to  460,000  tons  at  the 
present  time.  These  figures  do  not  take  account  of  the  zinc-white 
derived  directly  from  the  ore.  The  largest  use  of  zinc  is  in  galva- 
nizing iron,  but,  as  is  the  case  with  lead,  much  is  used  in  the  manu- 
facture of  white  paint.  The  balance  is  employed  in  brass  making, 
sheet-zinc  making,  etc.  Many  of  our  states  havi-  zinc-bearing  ores, 
but  Missouri  is  far  in  the  lead  in  spelter  production. 


AN    ADOI'.E    IXniAN    HUT 


ISS 


INDl  SIRV   AND    TRADE 


Aluminum.  This  metal  also  is  a  newcomer,  having  reached 
prominence  only  two  or  three  decades  ago.  It  is  very  widely  dis- 
tributed in  nature,  forming  about  one  thirteenth  of  the- earth's 
crust ;  in  some  rock  there  is  from  20  to  30  per  cent  of  aluminum. 
The  metal  has,  of  course,  always  been  present,  but  unlike  the  rest 
which  we  have  mentioned,  it  was  not  discovered  until  recently 

and  so  has  no  long  history. 
It  possesses,  however,  cer- 
tain very  valuable  proper- 
ties —  lightness  together 
with  strength,  ductility, 
and  electrical  conductivity. 
Were  it  not  for  the  ex- 
pense of  extraction  it 
would  be  far  more  common 
than  it  is,  but  with  greater 
ease  in  working  it,  under 
electrical  processes,  pro- 
duction is  rapidly  increas- 
ing. In  1883  we  produced 
83  pounds  of  aluminum  ; 
in  19 1 4  we  produced  79,- 
000,000  pounds.  When 
its  price,  as  compared  with 
that  of  iron  and  copper,  is 
sufficiently  reduced,  alumi- 
num will  doubtless  be  used  extensively  as  a  substitute  for  them, 
for  it  has  the  necessary  qualities  ;  and  the  price  of  copper,  at 
least,  is  now  not  so  far  from  that  of  the  newer  metal.  One 
of  the  main  superiorities  of  aluminum  is  its  lightness  ;  the  need 
for  a  strong,  light  metal  for  use  in  automobiles,  and  especially 
in  the  manufacture  of  aeroplanes  and  other  flying  machines  has 
raised  a  considerable  demand  for  aluminum.  This  metal  alloys 
with  others  rather  easily,  and  it  strongly  resists  the  influence  of 
water  and  vegetable  acids ;    it  is  therefore  especially  adapted  to 


A    POTTER  S    WllKKL 


OTHER  MINERALS 


189 


the  construction  of  kitchen  utensils  and  surgical  goods.  It  is  now 
used  for  many  seemingly  inconsistent  purposes,  such  as  machine 
bearings,  fancy  articles,  jewelry,  and  (a  utility  as  yet  only  in  its 
beginnings)  the  decoration  of  interiors  —  it  supplants  wood,  for 
example,  in  modern  business  offices. 

Clay  products.  Clay  formed  an  obvious  material  for  the  manipu- 
lation of  early  man,  and  he  formed  it  into  many  sorts  of  utensils, 
as  well  as  into  bricks  for  house  construction,  which  were  at  first 
merely  sun-dried  (adobe).    Probably  by  accident  he  early  discovered 


dish-.making;  putting  handles  on  dishes 

the  possibility  of  baking  and  so  of  hardening  the  clay,  and  then 
the  way  was  open  to  hard  brick  and  pottery.  In  the  course  of 
time  the  several  varieties  of  clay  were  discovered,  and  wares 
were  manufactured  that  ranged  from  the  coarsest  brick  to  the 
most  delicate  porcelain. 

Value  of  the  clay  industries.  Clay  beds  are,  of  course,  well- 
nigh  universal  ;  they  are  so,  in  particular,  in  this  country.  They 
differ  much  in  grade  of  product,  being  fit  for,  say,  brick,  tile,  or 
pottery.  The  American  Indian  was  a  great  pottery-maker,  but  in 
a  rude  way,  for  he  did  not  know  of  the  potter's  wheel.  In  early 
colonial  days  there  were  small  potteries  in  all  the  colonies.  And 
the  first  manufactory  of  white  ware  was  in  Burlington,  New  Jersey, 


190 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


but  the  pottery  industry  was  not  firmly  established  here  until  after 
the  Revolution.  At  present  the  annual  value  of  our  clay  products 
is  between  5150,000,000  and  S 200,000,000  ;  for  many  years  the 
brick  and  tile  products  have  constituted  about  four  fifths  of  the 
value  of  all  clay  products,  the  other  fifth  being  pottery.  In- money 
value  the  clay  products  stand,  among  the  nonmctallic  minerals, 
next  to  coal  and  petroleum.     Bricks  and  tiles  are  of  the  most 


STEAM  SHOVEL   LOADING   CEiMEXT    ROCK   OX  CARS 

consistent  utility  in  structural  work ;  the  clay  industry  goes 
up  and  down  with  building  operations.  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania 
figure  most  prominently  in  both  general  branches  of  the  clay 
industr)'. 

Stone.  An  important  natural  resource  of  the  United  States  is 
the  variety  and  abundance  of  its  stone  —  stone  adapted  to  building 
and  to  other  important  purposes.  The  principal  stone  quarried  are 
limestone,  granite,  marble,  basalt  and  related  rocks,  and  sand- 
stone —  limestone  representing  over  40  per  cent  of  the  total  value 
of  the  annual  output  and  granite  about  25  per  cent.  The  leading 
states  in  production  are  Pennsylvania,  Vermont,  New  York,  Ohio, 
and  Indiana. 


OTHER  MINERALS 


191 


Development  of  the  stone  industry.  Despite  severe  competition 
with  artificial-stone  products  the  stone  industry  as  a  whole  has 
advanced  as  the  country  has  developed.  The  use  of  cement  has 
damaged  the  production  of  the  lower  grade  of  stones — foundation 
stones,  for  example  —  but  it  has  not  much  affected  the  higher  grades 
used  in  building  and  still  less  those  employed  in  monumental 
and    ornamental  work.     In    fact,   the   use  of   concrete   and   the 


USING  AX  AIR-DRIVEN    CHISEL  TO  CUT  A  BLOCK  OF  GRANITE 


extensive  building  of  roads  and  railroads  has  stimulated  the 
crushed-stone  industry  to  such  an  extent  as  to  more  than  offset 
the  decline  in  other  kinds.  Sandstone  production  alone  shows  a 
consistent  decrease.  It  advanced  considerably  with  the  building 
of  numbers  of  railroad  bridges  and  other  structures,  from  1S97 
to  1903,  but  since  the  latter  date  its  use  for  building  purposes 
has  suffered  from  competition  with  cement  as  well  as  limestone, 
and  it  is  not  well  adapted  for  use  in  tlie  cruslicd  form. 

Cement.  There  are  three  principal  tyjx's  of  hydraulic  cements 
—  natural,  Portland,  and  puzzolan.  The  first  is  sometimes  called 
Roman  cement,  and  is  obtained  by  treating  a  certain  tv[)e  of  lime- 
stone.   This  cement  was  first  used  in  l^ngland  in   1796.     In  the 


19- 


INDUSTRV  AND  TRADE 


LOADING  LIMESTONE 


I'nitcd  States  "  cement  rock  "  was  discovered  in  New  York  State 
during  the  building  of  the  Erie  Canal  in  i8i<S,  and  cement  made 
from  it  was  used  in  building  the  locks  and  walls  of  the  canal. 
rortlaiul    cement   is    a    more   complicated    product    named    from 

some  resemblance  shown  by 
it  to  a  sort  of  limestone 
found  on  Portland  Isle,  Dor- 
setshire, England.  Puzzolan 
cement  when  made  into 
mortar  has  the  property  of 
hardening  under  water ;  it 
has  been  used  in  Italy  since 
very  early  times.  The  annual 
value  of  these  three  varieties 
of  cement  is,  for  the  United 
States,  upwards  of  $80,000,000,  most  of  which  is  to  be  credited 
to  the  Portland  variety.  The  use  of  this  material  is  rapidly  in- 
creasing, extending  even  to  the  "pouring"  of  a  house  in  molds. 
Summary.  It  is  apparent  that  our  country  leads  the  world  in 
the  production  of  most  min- 
erals. There  are  only  a  few 
in  which  we  are  deficient 
or  wholly  lacking,  the  most 
important  being  platinum, 
nickel,  and  tin.  Our  min- 
erals are  genuine  natural 
resources,  for  they  were 
placed  here  by  the  forces 
of  nature  and  cannot  be 
imported  into  the  ground, 
propagated,  or  otherwise 
manipulated  by  man  except  as  he  may  dig  them  up  and  use  them. 
It  may  be  said  that  this  country  possesses  not  alone  a  rich  soil 
but  also  a  rich  subsoil. 


UNLOADING    LIMESTONE    INTO    THE    TOP 
OF   A    MAMMOTH    CRUSHER 


PART  V.     MANUFACTURING 
INDUSTRIES 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ADVANTAGES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  FOR  MANUFACTURING, 
AND  THE  LOCALIZATION  OF  INDUSTRIES 

The  working  up  of  natural  materials.  Scarcely  any  product 
of  agricultural,  animal,  or  mineral  industry  is  read}'  for  the  use 
of  man  until  it  has  been  reshaped  or  transformed  in  some  way. 
The  hand  of  man  has  to  be  set  to  this  task,  and  the  result  is  a 
manufacture  —  something  made  by  hand,  as  the  Latin  derivation 
of  the  word  indicates.  We  could  not  help  referring  to  such 
fashioning  over  of  materials  in  what  we  have  already  said  :  the 
cereals  have  to  be  ground,  the  sugar  refined,  the  cotton  spun  and 
woven,  the  animal  products  worked  up  in  various  ways,  the  min- 
erals gotten  from  the  ore  and  shaped,  the  crude  oil  relieved  of 
its  impurities  and  other  unpleasant  qualities. 

Antiquity  of  manufacture.  Of  course  man  has  been  at  work 
for  all  his  time  on  earth  setting  his  hand  and  brain  to  the  task 
of  making  the  most  out  of  what  he  has  gotten  from  the  soil. 
Manufactures  go  back  so  far  that  some  authorities  think  the 
chief  distinction  between  man  and  the  lower  animals  is  that  man 
is  the  "tool-using  animal" — a  tool  being  really  any  form  of 
instrument  used  in  adjusting  materials  to  human  use.  A  history 
of  human    manufacture  would  be  a  history  of  thi'   human   race. 

'9,1 


194  INDUSTRY  AND    I'RADE 

It  would  be  a  technoloi^^ical  encyclopedia  in  many  volumes.  In 
this  book  we  shall  have  enough  to  do  if  we  start  at  once  with 
our  own  country  and  the  modern  age. 

Development  of  our  manufactures.  In  general,  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  —  a  landmark  in  our  industrial 
history  to  which  we  have  had  occasion  to  refer  over  and  over 
again  as  the  starting-point  of  this  or  that  extractive  industry  — 
the  value  of  the  manufactures  of  this  country  was  comparatively 
small.  Agriculture  was  the  chief  occupation,  and  most  of  the 
articles  required  by  the  mass  of  the  people  were  made  in  their 
homes,  while  the  wealthier  classes  were  supplied  in  large  part 
by  the  importation  of  manufactured  wares  from  other  lands.  The 
factory  system,  which  secured  a  hold  in  England  at  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  did  not  become  generally  established  here 
until  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  develop- 
ment of  our  manufactures  on  a  very  large  scale  has,  in  fact, 
taken  place  since  1880.  Numerous  causes,  into  which  we  shall 
go  further  later  on,  have  helped  to  produce  this  result ;  they 
are  increased  supplies  of  raw  materials  produced  here,  increase 
of  population,  improved  transportation,  increased  purchasing  power 
of  the  masses,  and  increased  foreign  demand  for  our  manufactures. 
At  the  present  day  we  lead  the  world  as  a  manufacturing  nation, 
but  our  home  market  is  so  great,  because  of  our  vast  population, 
that  only  a  small  proportion  of  our  total  manufactures  is  exported. 
The  industries  of  the  country  are  now  very  numerous  and  are 
coming  to  be  more  and  more  widely  scattered  over  the  land,  but 
the  more  densely  populated  region  of  the  Northeast  is  the  typical 
manufacturing  area.  On  the  basis  of  value  of  manufactured  prod- 
ucts, the  five  leading  states  are  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Illinois, 
Ohio,  and  Massachusetts.  Taken  together,  these  states  produce 
half  of  all  the  goods  manufactured  in  the  United  States. 

Value  of  our  manufactures.  The  annual  value  of  the  products 
of  our  manufacturing  industries  amounts  to  about  $25,000,000,000. 
The  output  of  our  manufacturing  plants  has  more  than  doubled 
since  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century.    The  largest  class  of 


New  York 

Pennsylvania  .... 

Illinois 

Ohio 

Massachusetts    .  .  . 

New  Jersey 

Michigan 

Indiana 

California  ..... 

Wisconsin 

Missouri 

Connecticut 

Minnesota 

Maryland 

Texas 

Kansas 

Iowa 

North  Carolina  .  .  . 
Rhode  Island  .  .  .  . 

Virginia 

Louisiana 

Georgia 

Washington 

Kentucky 

Nebraska 

Tennessee 

Maine 

West  Virginia  .... 
New  Hampshire    .  . 

Alabama 

South  Carolina   .  .  . 

Colorado 

Oregon 

Oklahoma 

Utah 

Montana 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Mississippi 

Vermont 

Arizona 

Delaware 

District  of  Columbia 

Idaho   

South  Dakota  .  .  .  . 
North  I.)akota .  .  .  . 

Nevada 

Wyoming 

New  Mexico    .  .  . 


400 


800       1.200 


Millions  of  dollars 
1.600     2.000      2.400 


3.200     3.600     4.000 


ANNUAL    VALUK   OK    PRODUCTS    MANUFACTURED    IN    EACH    .STATE 

After  diagram  in  Abstract  of  the  Census  of  Manufactures 

■95 


196 


INDUSl'RV  AND    TRADK 


manufactured  goods  comprises  food  and  kindred  products  ;  and 
in  tiiis  class  slaughtering  and  meat  products  constitute  the  largest 
items,  followed  by  flour  and  gristmill  products.  The  next  class 
in  value  of  output  is  the  textile  industries,  among  which  cotton 
manufacture  takes  the  first  place.  Iron  and  steel  and  their  devel- 
oped forms  come  third,  and  chemical  and  allied  products  fourth. 
The  following  summary,  taken  from  a  recent  Census  of  Manu- 
factures, exhibits  some  of  the  most  striking  facts  about  our 
recent  manufacturing  development : 


1914 


1909 


1904 


Number  of  establishments  . 

Persons  engaged  in  manu- 
facture       

Proprietors  and  firm  mem- 
bers   

Salaried  employees      .     .    . 

Wage-earners,  average  num- 
ber   

Primary  horse  power  .     .     . 

Capital 

Services 

Salaries 

Wages 

Cost  of  materials      .... 

Value  added  by  manufacture 

Total  value  of  products  .    . 


275'79i 
8,265,426 

264,872 
964,217 

7.036,337 

22,547,574 

$22,790,980,000 

5,367,249,000 

1,287,917,000 

4,079,332,000 

14,368,089,000 

9,878,346,000 

24,246,435,000 


268,491 

7,678,578 

273,265 
790,267 

6,615,046 

18,675,376 

$18,428,270,000 

4,365,613,000 

938,575,000 

3,427,038,000 

12,142,791,000 

8,529,261,000 

20,672,052,000 


216,180 

6,213,612 

225,673 
5i9'55S 

5,468,383 

13,487,707 

ii  2,675, 5^1,000 

3,184,884,000 

574,439,000 

2,610,455,000 

8,500,208,000 

6,293,695,000 

14,793,902,000 


Causes  of  our  success.  We  have  stated  these  remarkable  and 
even  startling  facts  and  figures  at  the  outset,  in  order  to  show 
that  there  is  here  something  deserving  of  description  and  of 
explanation.  The  world  has  never  seen  anything  like  this  before. 
Here,  three  hundred  years  ago,  was  a  raw  country  ;  but  there 
have  been  other  raw  countries  that  have  had  no  such  industrial 
development.  Something  beyond  the  mere  newness  of  the  land 
was  operating  in  this  case.  Wherein  lay  the  causes  of  such  an 
unparalleled  success  ? 


ADVANTAGES  FOR  MANUFACTURING 


197 


Our  rich  resources.  Some  of  these  causes  we  have  aheady  en- 
countered, namely,  the  agricultural  and  mineral  resources.  There 
are  in  the  United  States,  as  we  have  already  seen,  abundant  food 
supplies  of  almost  all  sorts  and  abundant  raw  agricultural  mate- 
rials ;  thus  are  the  consumer  and  the  manufacturer  satisfied.  As 
for  minerals,  this  country  contains  supplies  of  almost  all  that  are 


ROUTES   FROM    THE   MINES    OF  THE   IRON-ORE   RECilON   OF   LAKE   SUPERIOR 

TO   FURNACE 


required  for  the  development  of  manufactures.  It  is  particularly 
rich  in  coal  and  iron,  the  great  essentials  ;  and  this  coal  and 
iron,  together  with  the  limestone  needed  for  smelting,  are  to  be 
found  either  in  proximity  or  so  located  that  easy  transportation 
routes  connect  them.  Iron  deposits,  for  example,  are  at  one  end 
of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  coal  at  the  other ;  but,  largely  for  the 
purpose  of  assembling  them,  there  exists  on  the  Great  Lakes 
the  cheapest  and  most  efficient  system  of  water  transportation 
to  be   found  anywhere   in   the   world.     Agricultural   and   mineral 


198  INDL'STRV  AND    TRADE 

materials  for  manufacture  are  cheap  and  can  be  taken  witli  little 
expense  to  places  where  they  are  wanted. 

The  transportation  system.  This  leads  us  to  speak  of  the 
transportation  system  in  general ;  we  shall  describe  it  more  spe- 
cially later  on.  Our  facilities  in  this  line  arc  exceptional,  notably 
in  the  most  heavily  populated  regions,  where  are  the  seats  of 
manufacture.  Not  only  can  we  assemble  materials  readil)-  but  we 
can  also  get  products  to  market  easily  and  quickly.  Most  of  the 
important  manufacturing  regions  are  on  the  seaboard,  or  salt  water 
is  accessible  to  them.  As  early  as  1899  the  freight  traffic  of 
the  Great  Lakes  had  become  so  large  that  they  became  the  fore- 
most internal  waterway  in  the  world,  and  the  traffic  was  so  heavy 
that  more  than  five  times  as  many  vessels  passed  through  the 
Canadian  and  American  "  Soo "  Canal  as  through  the  Suez 
Canal.  Of  the  railway  system  it  is  enough  to  say,  for  now,  that 
it  reaches  the  most  remote  regions  of  the  country  and  shows  a 
mileage  far  exceeding  that  of  all  European  countries  combined. 
Freight  rates  are  comparatively  low,  so  that  here  again  is  an 
element  of  cheapness  to  encourage  production. 

Freedom  of  trade.  It  is  readily  seen  that  ease  of  movement  of 
products  is  a  great  feature  in  encouraging  production.  But  in 
addition  to  unrivaled  transportation  facilities  we  are,  in  this 
country  of  about  three  million  square  miles  and  over  a  hundred 
million  souls,  without  any  commercial  barriers.  There  are  no 
frontiers  to  be  passed  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  —  three 
thousand  miles.  This  is  the  largest  area  in  the  world  which  is 
free  and  unrestricted  by  customs  taxes  or  national  prejudice. 
We  are  all  one  nation,  and  trade  within  our  wide  boundaries 
is  free.  This  fact  alone  accounts  for  much  in  our  industrial 
development  which  could  not  otherwise  have  been. 

The  demand  for  our  manufactures.  Thus  we  have  had  the 
natural  resources,  the  opportunity  to  move  products  about  freely, 
a  quality  of  population  able  to  adapt  itself  to  new  situations  — 
especially  through  its  inventiveness  —  and  also  markets  for  what- 
ever we  could  make.   When  we  had  little  but  forests,  these  were  in 


ADVANTAGES  FOR  MANUFACTURING      199 

demand  in  the  countries  with  which  we  came  most  into  contact  — 
England,  the  West  Indies,  Southern  Europe  (England  being 
always  ready  to  buy  our  naval  timber  and  stores).  But  a  word 
more  remains  to  be  said  about  our  population. 

American  progressiveness.  We  have  said  that  America  was  long 
a  frontier  society.  That  meant,  among  other  things  which  we 
have  mentioned,  that  the  colonists  here  were  enabled  to  bring 
over  what  they  chose  of  the  European  system  and  also  to  reject 
whatever  there  was  in  that  system  that  did  not  appeal  to  them. 
Since  many  of  the  settlers  migrated  because  they  were  dissatis- 
fied at  home,  they  readily  left  behind  them  the  ideas  that  had 
irritated  them,  llic  whole  situation,  as  we  have  seen,  was  calcu- 
lated to  make  them  independent  and  fond  of  doing  their  own 
thinking  in  their  own  way,  and  they  fell  into  a  national  habit 
of  striking  out  on  new  paths.  We  entered,  therefore,  upon  our 
industrial  course  unfettered  by  the  old  order  of  things  and  with 
a  tendency  to  seek  out  and  adopt  the  best  and  quickest  ways. 

American  adaptability.  In  the  European  countries  the  develop- 
ment was,  so  to  speak,  step  by  step  and  reluctant.  People  had 
become  accustomed  for  generations  to  fixed  methods  of  work,  in 
which  they  had  developed  a  high  degree  of  skill,  and  they  would 
not  readily  abandon  them  in  favor  of  new  ones.  In  Europe  it 
was  natural  for  the  artisan  class  to  resist  the  introduction  of 
machinery  into  those  trades  by  which  it  lived ;  and  so  hand 
processes  of  manufacture  persisted  side  by  side  with  machine 
methods,  whereas  in  the  United  States  the  machine  easily  usurped 
the  whole  field.  For  in  this  country  the  artisan  showed  no  "  in- 
lieritcd  and  intuitive  adherence  to  old-fashioned  methods,"  but  a 
tendency,  rather,  to  abandon  hand  processes  and  take  up  machine 
methods.  The  frontier  society  advances  by  longer  strides,  covering 
in  a  few  hundreds  of  years  at  most  the  distance  from  the  raw  and 
crude  to  the  civilized  and  polished.  Likewise  the  laboring  classes 
here  have  illustrated  a  marked  mobility  of  labor  unknown  in  other 
parts  of  the  world  and  for  this  reason  it  is  possible  to  attract 
to  almost  any  region  of  the  country  the  skilled  labor  necessary 


200  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

to  develop  anv  branch  of  industn*.  Consequently,  when  there  were 
enough  people  here  so  that  a  factory  system  could  be  developed 
at  all,  it  appeared  promptly,  and  there  was  no  great  wrench  in  the 
life  of  society  or  of  the  laborers. 

Independence  of  American  labor.  Also  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  in  America  there  were  no  cut-and-dried  social  distinctions. 
In  parts  of  Europe  a  son  was  almost  or  quite  sure  to  follow  his 
father's  profession  ;  he  was  expected  to  do  so,  and  not  to  try  to 
thrust  his  head  up  among  his  betters.  But  here  there  was  little  to 
prevent  a  man  from  roving  about  from  one  occupation  to  another  ; 
the  traditional  character  of  the  ""Yankee"  is  that  of  a  nasal-voiced, 
wood-whittling  person  who  refuses  to  be  surprised  at  anything  and 
who  can  set  his  hand  to  any  job  that  turns  up.  Something  of 
this  character  has  been  impressed  upon  the  nation. 

Civil  liberty.  And,  finally,  the  influence  of  our  form  of  gov- 
ernment, with  its  ideals  of  freedom  and  equal  opportunity  for  all 
men,  has  not  alone  allowed  those  who  were  here  to  live  out  their 
lives  under  a  liberty  greater  than  men  have  ever  enjoyed  before, 
but  it  has  attracted  to  us  men  and  women  with  mind  and  heart 
enough  to  appreciate  and  want  such  liberty.  Our  free  govern- 
ment, unhampered  business  organization,  highly  developed  edu- 
cational system,  and  social  system  in  general  have  all  contributed 
to  our  industrial  successes.  Men  living  under  such  conditions  de- 
velop hope  and  confidence  ;  they  succeed,  and  then  push  forward 
again  with  renewed  energy — for  ""nothing  succeeds  like  success." 
American  industrial  pioneers  have  learned  to  dare  greatly. 

Importance  of  these  social  virtues.  We  have  laid  considerable 
stress  upon  these  personal  and  social  advantages  enjoyed  by  our 
population,  both  here  and  in  a  preceding  chapter  on  "'  The  Human 
Element,"  because  we  believe  that  the  common  practice  of  re- 
ferring American  successes  to  natural  resources,  with  compara- 
tively little  said  about  the  quality  and  state  of  mind  of  the  people, 
represents  a  decidedly  narrow  or  careless  outlook  upon  our  situa- 
tion. It  is  the  men  as  well  as  the  things  that  must  be  counted  in 
if  one  is  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  American  industrial  development. 


ADVANTAGES   FOR  MANUFACTURING  20I 

LoCALIZATIOxN    OF    INDUSTRIES 

Factors  determining  localization.  Having  viewed  some  of  the 
broad,  general  reasons  for  American  industrial  growth,  a  question 
now  emerges.  Granted  that  the  conditions  of  land  and  popula- 
tion made  such  industrial  development  inevitable,  why  are  the 
centers  of  industry  in  general,  and  of  this  and  that  industry  in 
particular,  located  as  they  are,  and  not  otherwise  ?  To  this  ques- 
tion the  "  Report  on  Manufactures  "  in  the  Twelfth  Census  gives  an 
answer  which  will  serve  as  a  good  basis  for  our  study.  The  rea- 
sons why  a  manufacturing  industry  is  situated  in  one  place  rather 
than  another  are  stated  to  be  as  follows  :  ( i )  nearness  to  materials  ; 
(2)  nearness  to  markets;  (3)  presence  of  water  power;  (4)  a  favor- 
able climate;  (5)  a  good  supply  of  labor;  (6)  presence  of  capital 
available  for  investment ;  (7)  the  momentum  of  an  early  start. 
The  first  six  of  these  items  combine  to  limit  broadly  the  area 
within  which  it  is  economically  possible  to  develop  an  industry  ; 
but,  as  the  last  item  indicates, "  the  exact  place  within  this  area 
where  the  industry  takes  root  is  very  often  determined  by  the 
influence  of  some  pioneer  whose  personal  interests  have  caused 
him  to  fix  upon  some  special  spot.  Then  if  it  chances  that  such 
an  industry  is  successful,  it  soon  gains  a  momentum  strong 
enough  to  enable  it  to  continue  in  the  original  locality,  sometimes 
for  a  long  period  after  the  advantages  which  it  once  possessed 
have  disappeared.  We  shall  now  take  up  briefly  the  seven  items 
just  mentioned  as  determining  the  localization  of  an  industry  and, 
in  particular,  of  a  manufactory. 

Nearness  to  materials.  This  item,  as  well  as  most  of  the  rest, 
requires  nothing  but  illustration  to  make  it  clear.  The  paper  in- 
dustry developed  near  the  spruce  and  poplar  forests;  the  tanning 
industry  near  the  tanbark  and  other  tanning  materials  ;  slaughter- 
ing and  meat-packing  developed  near  the  stock-raising  centers ; 
agricultural  implements  were  manufactured  near  the  hardwood 
forests  and  the  iron-producing  centers  ;  the  glass  industry  located 
near  its  fuel  —  natural  gas  in  particular  ;  the  iron  industry  sticks 


202  INDl'Sl'RV  AM)    IRADE 

to  the  coal  region.  Now  if  one  could  b\-  magic  transfer  heavy 
bodies  instantaneously  from  place  to  place,  this  item  and  the  next 
one  would  disappear  from  our  list  —  a  munition  manufacturer 
would  not  remain  the  year  round  in  Ikidgeport,  Connecticut,  but 
would  take  his  business  to  the  Maine  coast  or  the  White  Moun- 
tains during  the  hotter  months.  The  fact  is  that  both  these  items 
mean  saving  of  transportation  costs,  and  the  cheaper  and  swifter 
the  transportation,  the  less  powerful  are  these  conditions  of 
localization. 

Nearness  to  markets.  The  market  for  products  is  found  where 
men  are  —  there  is  little  market  for  anything  in  the  Desert  of 
Sahara.  If  one  notes  in  the  Census  Atlas  the  movement  of  the 
center  of  population  for  the  country,  since  about  the  middle 
of  the  last  century,  let  us  say,  he  has  already  noted  thereby 
the  general  movement  of  the  center  of  manufactures.  A  large 
percentage  of  the  manufacturing  of  this  countr\^  is  carried  on 
in  states  of  dense  population,  such  as  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Massachusetts,  Illinois,  and  Ohio ;  these  five  states  contain  about 
one  third  of  the  population  of  the  United  States  and  produce 
about  half,  on  the  basis  of  value  of  our  manufactured  products. 

Water  power.  This  is  the  one  powerful  force  in  nature  which 
can  be  employed  in  man's  operations  almost  directly  —  as  com- 
pared, for  example,  with  heat  and  electricity.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  transport  water  power,  and  so  the  manufacturer  with  it 
at  his  disposal  has  an  important  advantage  over  the  one  who 
uses  coal.  Before  the  days  of  steam  the  influence  of  available 
water  power  for  the  localization  of  manufactures  was  still  more 
decided ;  and  this  eaily  impetus,  combined  with  other  forces,  has 
tended  to  hold  such  industries  in  their  original  locations,  even 
when  steam  as  a  source  of  power  has  become  more  important 
than  water.  New  England  had  numerous  rapid  rivers,  so  that 
water  power  gave  this  section,  especially  in  earlier  times,  an 
advantage  in  securing  manufacturing  eminence.  The  location 
of  plants  along  the  well-known  "fall  Hne  "  has  been  referred  to 
in  a  preceding  chapter. 


ADVANTAGES   FOR  MANUFACTURING  203 

Favorable  climate.  Where  the  climate  is  too  warm  the  work- 
man sacrifices  efficiency ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  other  ex- 
treme, in  addition  to  the  fact  that  costs  for  heating  have  to  be 
incurred.  Much  sunhght,  again,  saves  illumination.  The  influ- 
ence of  a  moist  climate,  with  temperature  fairly  even  throughout 
the  day,  was  a  factor  favoring  New  Bedford  and  Fall  River  for  the 
cotton-spinning  industry.  Recently  investigations  have  been  made 
concerning  the  influence  of  climatic  and  weather  conditions  upon 
labor  efficiency,  and  it  is  found  that  extremes  either  of  heat  or  cold 
tend  to  lessen  the  efficiency  of  factory  operatives.  When  compe- 
tition shall  have  become  keener,  reducing  margins  of  profits  within 
narrower  limits,  it  may  well  be  found  that  the  factor  of  climate  is 
much  more  significant  for  industry  than  we  have  hitherto  imag- 
ined. Man  is  always  an  animal,  made  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  he  can  emancipate  himself  from  the 
influence  of  this  factor,  so  powerful  over  all  animal  life. 

Labor  supply.  Manufactures  are  made  for  men,  not  men  for 
manufactures ;  but  without  the  men  in  sufficient  numbers  there 
are  no  manufactures.  The  virtual  coincidence  of  the  center  of 
population  and  the  center  of  manufactures,  of  which  we  have 
spoken,  is  due  also  to  the  dependence  of  industry  upon  workmen. 
An  industry  requiring  thousands  of  laborers  in  a  single  plant  can- 
not exist  in  a  sparsely  settled  region.  American  labor  is  mobile, 
as  we  have  pointed  out,  but  not  indefinitely  so.  The  labor  draws 
the  industry,  as  well  as  the  industry  the  labor.  Manufactures 
regularly  are  established  in  sections  where  there  is  a  good  supply 
of  labor  near  at  hand.  Here  is  where  the  New  England  towns 
have  had  a  great  advantage.  They  were  surrounded  by  farms 
which  had  reached  the  point  of  exhaustion  and  could  employ 
only  a  small  number  of  the  young  men  and  women.  The  surplus 
labor  moved  naturally  to  the  towns,  and  the  early  development  of 
manufacturing  was  thereby  favored,  h'or  a  similar  reason  no  ex- 
tensive manufacturing  plants  can  be  located  in  those  parts  of  the 
West  where  the  additions  to  population  are  absorbed  for  the  most 
part  in  a  still  incompletely  developed  agriculture. 


204  IXOrSTRV  AND  TRADE 

Different  industries  in  different  sections.  The  result,  in  a  big 
country  like  this,  is  that  diti'ercnt  sections  are  likely  to  specialize 
in  different  industries,  thus  supplementing  one  another  ;  and  the 
fact  that  this  is  the  case,  plus  the  fact  of  interior  freedom  of  trade, 
furnishes  yet  another  good  reason  for  our  general  preeminence 
in  industrial  lines.  Nor  must  the  copious  stream  of  immigration 
into  the  United  States  be  left  out  of  account  as  contributing  power- 
fully to  our  labor  supply,  and  so  to  our  manufacturing  supremacy; 
but  the  immigrants  tend  to  settle  in  the  northern  and  eastern 
sections  of  the  country,  and  so  to  influence  the  localization  in 
these  sections  of  plants  demanding  a  large  labor  force  ;  that  is, 
the  large  manufacturing  plants. 

Supply  of  capital.  Much  capital  is  required  for  the  building  of 
factories  and  the  setting  up  of  machinery.  The  day  of  the  single 
owner  or  of  the  limited  ownership  of  industrial  plants  has  gone  ; 
it  needs  the  combined  capital  of  many  men  to  establish  and  oper- 
ate a  modern  factory.  But  locally  owned  capital  has  always  been 
an  important  factor  in  the  development  of  American  industries. 
Now  some  of  the  largest  enterprises  are  financed  from  big  finan- 
cial centers  remote  from  the  place  where  the  plant  is  located  ; 
but  many  of  the  smaller  concerns,  and  almost  all  of  the  earlier 
ones  from  which  the  contemporary  industries  have  developed,  have 
been  financed  by  people  on  the  ground.  For  example,  a  good 
deal  of  capital  was  set  free  in  New  Bedford  by  the  decline  of  the 
whaling  industry,  and  this  was  utilized,  in  good  part,  about  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  for  the  establishment  of  cotton 
manufacture.  A  Siamese  prince  may  now  own  shares  in  a  New 
Bedford  cotton  mill,  but  the  mill  is  in  New  Bedford  because 
originally  it  was  New  Bedford  people  who  put  their  money  into 
it.  Southern  cotton  mills  also  have  been  financed  in  large  part 
with  the  capital  of  local  townspeople. 

Knowledge  of  local  conditions.  In  many  instances  capital  has 
been  raised  outside,  but  even  so  it  can  be  obtained  more  easily 
after  the  men  on  the  spot  have  expressed  their  confidence  in  the 
undertaking  by  investing  in  it  themselves.    People  like  to  have 


ADVANTAGES   FOR  MANUFACTURINCx  205 

good  evidence  as  to  the  nature  of  the  enterprise  into  which  they 
are  putting  their  capital,  and  there  is  no  evidence  so  rehable  as 
personal  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  material  prospects  and 
of  the  men  who  are  to  do  the  directing ;  and  these  you  get  by 
close  acquaintance  with  both. 

The  momentum  of  an  early  start.  This  point  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  last  one.  Let  the  conditions  be  good  and  let 
the  local  people  put  up  the  capital,  and  presently  the  industry 
gathers  such  headway  that  it  is  hard  to  overtake.  The  preceding 
factors  explain  the  localization  of  industries  within  certain  broad 
areas,  but  they  ordinarily  fail  to  account  for  the  marked  concen- 
tration of  certain  industries  within  a  single  town  or  city.  As  we 
have  remarked,  it  was  often  the  personal  reason,  or  lack  of  rea- 
son, of  the  pioneer  in  the  industry  in  question  that  did  the  busi- 
ness, he  chanced  to  be  in  a  certain  place,  not  obviously  unfitted 
for  a  certain  industry,  when  he  conceived  the  idea  of  starting  it. 
Many  industries  continue  where  they  were  established,  even  though 
there  are  dozens  of  other  localities  where  the  product  could  now 
be  made  with  equal,  or  even  superior,  advantage.  We  propose  to 
illustrate  this  factor  of  the  early  start  at  some  length  ;  it  looks  like 
chance,  for  it  is  not  easy  to  penetrate  into  the  circumstances  that 
led  the  pioneer  to  make  his  start  where  he  did  ;  in  any  case,  there 
were  miscellaneous  reasons  in  the  minds  of  many  pioneers  — 
too  miscellaneous,  perhaps,  to  classify. 

Boots  and  shoes  at  Lynn.  The  boot  and  shoe  industry  of 
Lynn,  Massachusetts,  is  a  case  in  point.  A  certain  skilled  shoe- 
maker chanced  to  settle  in  Lynn.  He  made  better  shoes  than 
his  competitors,  and  ended  by  making  the  boot  and  shoe  industry 
of  the  town.  Lynn  was  famous  for  its  shoes  as  early  as  1764; 
but  had  this  man  settled  in  Dedham  rather  than  Lynn,  the 
former  town  would  probably  occupy  to-day  the  high  position  in 
this  industry  actually  held  by  the  latter. 

Collars  and  cuffs  at  Troy.  Take,  again,  the  manufacture  of 
collars  and  cuffs,  an  industry  which  shows  the  greatest  con- 
centration of  any  in  the  country.   Troy,  New  York,  manufactures 


2o6 


IXnrSTRY  AND  TRADE 


about  90  per  cent  of  all  the  men's  collars  and  cuffs  made  in  the 
United  States.  Now  it  was  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago  that  the 
making  of  collars  started  in  Troy.  At  that  time  it  was  the  fash- 
ion to  make  the  shirts  with  collars  attached,  and  the  manufacture 
of  separate  collars  was  a  novel  departure.  It  is  said  that  a  retired 
clergyman  of  Troy,  who  owned  a  small  dry-goods  store,  conceived 
the   idea  of  making  and  selling  the   separate  collars ;   his  wife 


INTERIOR  OF  A  BOOT  AND  SHOE  FACTORY  AT  LYNN 


and  daughters  made  them  by  hand  and  starched  and  ironed  them 
on  the  kitchen  table.  These  collars  sold  as  fast  as  they  could  be 
made  ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  the  manufacture  of  separate 
collars  and,  later,  of  cuffs  —  and  then  of  shirts  as  well  —  became 
an  important  local  business. 

Firearms  in  Connecticut.  Connecticut  is  preeminent  among 
our  states  in  the  manufacture  of  firearms  and  ammunition.  Here, 
again,  there  was  an  early  start,  for  Eli  Whitnev,  inventor  of  the 
cotton  gin,  was  one  of  the  earliest  makers  of  firearms,  beginning 


ADVANTAGES  FOR  MANUFACTURING 


207 


his  operations  in  Whitneyville  early  in  the  last  century.  In  18 14 
pistols  were  being  made  in  Middletovvn,  and  before  the  middle 
of  the  century  Samuel  Colt,  another  inventor  of  firearms,  had 
built  factories  in  Hartford  costing  half  a  million  dollars.  In  this 
state  various  other  arms  and  munitions  were  being  made  in  large 
quantities  before  the  Civil  War,  and  it  has  continued  to  pre- 
serve its  advantage.    At  the  time  of  the  Spanish  War,  and  again 


INSPECTING    RIFLE   AMMUNITION 


in  the  Great  War  of  our  day,  it  has  been  supposed  by  some 
nervous  people  that  an  enemy  would  certainly  strain  every  point 
to  make  a  successful  assault  upon  Bridgeport  or  New  Haven. 
There  is  no  particular  reason  for  such  localization  of  the  manu- 
facture of  arms  and  munitions  except  that  they  started  early  and 
met  with  success. 

Other  cases  of  specialization.  h\irthcr  illustrations  of  concen- 
tration of  industries  reveal  the  operation  of  several  of  the  factors 
instanced  above,  in  addition  to  that  of  an  early  start.  In  a  recent 
Census  of  Manufactures  of  the  United  States  fifty  industries 
were  selected  t<j  illustrate  this  concentration   in  varying  degrees. 


2oS  IXIU'STRV  AND    TRADE 

riuis,  86  per  cent  of  the  artificial  flowers  and  plumes  were  being 
made  in  New  York  State  ;  63  per  cent,  on  the  basis  of  value,  of 
the  automobile  product  was  contributed  by  Michigan ;  Massa- 
chusetts still  continued  to  produce  close  to  half  of  the  boots  and 
shoes  of  the  country ;  Connecticut  made  over  40  per  cent  of 
the  brass,  bronze,  and  copper  products ;  New  York  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, taken  together,  manufactured  over  70  per  cent  of  the 
carpets  and  rugs  ;  New  York,  about  70  per  cent  of  the  fur  goods, 
leather  gloves,  and  mittens ;  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  together, 
about  70  per  cent,  on  the  basis  of  value,  of  the  output  of  blast 
furnaces,  steel  works,  and  rolling-mills  ;  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey,  over  60  per  cent  of  our  silk  goods  ;  Illinois,  about  30  per 
cent  of  the  product  of  slaughtering  and  meat-packing ;  and 
Louisiana  and  Texas,  together,  nearly  90  per  cent,  on  the  basis  of 
value,  of  the  rice-cleaning  and  rice-polishing  industry. 

Specialization  by  cities.  With  respect  to  the  concentration  of 
industries  in  particular  cities,  it  may  be  said  that  according  to  a 
recent  investigation  Detroit,  Michigan,  was  making  over  25  per 
cent,  on  the  basis  of  value,  of  the  automobiles  of  the  country ; 
Philadelphia,  30  per  cent  of  the  carpets  and  rugs ;  New  York 
City,  a  third  of  the  men's  ready-made  clothing,  over  70  per  cent 
of  the  women's  clothing,  and  nearly  the  same  percentage  of  fur 
goods  ;  Gloversville,  New  York,  a  third  of  the  gloves  and  mittens  ; 
Paterson,  New  Jersey,  one  fifth  of  the  silk  goods ;  Chicago, 
a  quarter  of  the  slaughtering  and  meat-packing  products.  Some 
of  these  cases  can  be  briefly  accounted  for.  The  manufacture  of 
ready-made  clothing  is  concentrated  in  New  York  City  largely 
because  of  the  abundant  supply  of  cheap  immigrant  labor  that 
settles  or  is  stranded  there,  because  New  York  is  an  important, 
port  of  entry  for  the  materials  used,  and  because  New  York; 
received  the  impetus  of  an  early  start,  the  industry  beginning 
there  about  1830.  And,  again,  hosiery  and  knit  goods  were 
manufactured  in  Philadelphia  as  early  as  1698,  and  in  Cohoes, 
New  York,  in  1832.  The  early  start  of  Philadelphia  was  due  to 
the   immigration   and    settlement  of  a   large   number  of   skilled 


ADVANTAGES  FOR  MANUFACTURING      209 

hand-knitters  from  Europe,  while  Cohoes  received  a  strong 
stimulus  in  1832  from  the  local  invention  and  application  of  the 
first  power  knitting-machine  in  the  world. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  pursue  this  topic  of  the  localization 
of  industries  any  further  here ;  we  have  now  the  general  reasons 
and  some  examples  of  the  special  ones.  Whatever  else  is  needful 
for  an  adequate  understanding  of  the  subject  will  appear  as  we 
survey  the  several  manufacturing  industries  by  themselves. 


v-{.^i/-,.';r  - 


Ls^;A.47^-.  .,..  ./i,^%:!^^i<>^^i^  \  ■  ..•^A"..-Af;^A*:v.L 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


FOOD  AND  KINDRED  PRODUCTS 

Importance  of  the  food  industries.  This  group  of  industries 
embraces  the  manufacture  of  all  kinds  of  food  products  except 
liquors  and  beverages.  Of  the  fourteen  leading  groups  of  Ameri- 
can industries  distinguished  by  the  Census  Bureau  this  is  the 
most  important,  judged  by  the  annual  value  of  its  product ;  for 
the  various  industries  here  included  produce  a  value  of  close 
upon  $5,000,000,000  a  year.  The  simplest  classification  of  these 
industries  is  into  (i)  the  manufacture  of  animal  products  and 
(2)  the  manufacture  of  vegetable  products.  There  are  numerous 
special  industries  under  each  of  the  two  general  heads,  for 
the  description  of  all  of  which  several  large  volumes  would  be 
insufficient ;  we  shall  select  outstanding  examples  from  each  of 
the  two. 

Early  slaughtering  and  meat-packing.  From  the  standpoint 
of  value  of  product  the  slaughtering  and  meat-packing  industry 
is  now  the  most  important  in  the  first  group ;  and  it  finds  its 
greatest  development  in  the  killing,  curing,  and  packing  of  hogs, 
although  the  similar  treatment  of  cattle  and  sheep  is  no  small 
enterprise.  Naturally  pork-packing  came  out  of  the  original  do- 
mestic industry,  if  it  might  be  so  called,  of  filling  the  local  pork- 
barrel  for  the  family  use.  Shortly  before  1700  Boston  was  doing 
a  considerable  business  in  curing  pork  and  packing  it  in  barrels. 

The  westward  movement.  Then  the  Middle  West  began  the 
industry  in  18 18,  at  Cincinnati;   it  does  not  seem  to  have  taken 


FOOD  AND   KINDRED  PRODUCTS 


211 


root  in  Chicago  until  several  years  later.  In  the  winter  of  1832- 
1833  Cincinnati  slaughtered  85,000  hogs.  When,  now,  the 
agricultural  resources  of  the  Middle  West  started  in  their  develop- 
ment, there  was  plenty  of  food,  especially  corn,  for  the  domestic 
animals,  and  farmers  observed  the  profit  to  be  gained  by  raising 
hogs  for  Eastern  and  Southern  demand.  Of  this  something  has 
already  been  said.  And  the 
fact  that  shipping  required 
water  transportation  caused  the 
industry  to  settle  on  the  rivers  ; 
goods  went  to  market  by  way  of 
the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers, 
even  when  the  final  destination 
was  Baltimore,  Philadelphia, 
New  York,  or  Boston.  It  ap- 
pears that  the  river  fiatboat 
was  not  seldom  the  real  packing 
house,  as  the  curing  was  done 
on  board  while  the  meat  was  on 
the  way  to  market ;  or,  more 
often  perhaps,  the  curing  was 
done  on  board  the  boats  in 
winter  so  that  the  meat  would 
be  ready  for  marketing  when 
the  spring  thaws  freed  the  river 
for  navigation.  The  cured  product  was  often  sold  to  merchants 
located  at  strategic  shipping  points,  such  as  St.  Louis  and  New 
Orleans,  in  exchange  for  merchandise  such  as  rice,  sugar,  and 
molasses,  which  were  much  in  demand  in  the  up-river  country. 

Concentration  at  Chicago.  For  the  decade  1842-1852  Cincin- 
nati packed  over  a  quarter  of  the  total  pork  of  the  West,  reaching 
a  figure  of  475,000  hogs  slaughtered  in  1848- 1849;  but  soon 
thereafter  the  railroads  penetrated  the  West  and,  since  markets 
now  became  available  independently  of  waterways,  changed  the 
geographical    position    of   the  industry.     In   1850-1S51    Chicago 


DOWN  THK  ftUbSlSSU'l'l  HV  FLATBOAT 


212  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

slaughtered  20,000  hogs  and  afterwards  developed  the  industry 
very  rapidly;  Cincinnati  held  first  place  till  1861-1862,  after 
which  Chicago  was  not  to  be  overtaken.  Thus  the  center  of 
the  industry,  having  been  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  moved  westward 
to  the  great  stock-raising  centers.  It  is  much  cheaper  to  send 
packed  meat  to  distant  markets  than  it  is  to  assemble  the  animals 
for  slaughtering  at  points  nearer  the  consumers,  but  which  may 
be  a  thousand  or  thousands  of  miles  from  the  animal-raising  dis- 
tricts. This  industry  thus  adapted  its  location  to  considerations 
of  comparative  cost  of  production.  The  development  throughout 
the  country  has  been  strong ;  about  sixty  years  ago  the  capital 
invested  in  the  business  was  only  $3,500,000,  while  to-day  it  is 
over  $500,000,000.  The  industry  has  reached  such  enormous 
proportions  that  the  annual  value  of  its  product  is  $1,650,000,000, 
it  supports  nearly  100,000  wage-earners,  and  there  are  over 
1200  establishments. 

Rapidity  of  the  processes.  Labor-saving  devices  have  been  per- 
fected to  a  nicety  ;  the  killing  is  still  done  by  hand,  but  there 
are,  as  we  have  already  seen,  many  ingenious  devices  for  handling 
the  carcasses.  The  animals  are  prepared  for  the  chill-rooms  at  the 
rate  of  about  twenty  a  minute.  The  factor  which,  perhaps  more 
than  any  other,  has  stimulated  the  packing  industry  in  the  last 
few  decades  is  the  development  of  the  process  of  artificial  re- 
frigeration. The  carcass  has  to  be  properly  and  thoroughly  chilled  ; 
but  the  packing  season  is  now  twelve  months  long,  summer-cured 
meat  differing  in  no  essential  respect  from  winter-cured.  The 
problem  of  so  cutting  up  the  animals  as  to  cater  to  the  peculiar 
tastes  of  the  numerous  sections  and  nations  to  which  the  packing 
products  are  sent  is  a  matter  demanding  considerable  study  and 
care.  As  in  pork-packing,  so  in  beef-packing,  the  refrigerating 
methods,  and  especially  the  refrigerator  car,  have  been  of  great 
significance  ;  meat  handled  by  way  of  refrigeration  is  in  far  better 
condition  than  the  product  which  the  packers  used  to  provide 
years  ago,  when  living  animals  were  shipped  by  rail  for  two 
thousand  miles  or  so. 


FOOD  AND  KINDRED  PRODUCTS 


213 


GRINDING    FLOUR   IN    A    HAND   MILL 


Elimination   of  waste.     In   the   packing  industry   as  a  whole 
waste  has  been  rigorously  eliminated,  and  allied  industries  have 

developed  in  connection  with 
the  packing  houses.  "The 
fierceness  of  competition," 
says  an  expert,  "'  may  force 
the  packing  house  of  twenty- 
five  years  hence  to  include 
a  tannery,  a  boot  and  shoe 
factory,  a  cloth  mill,  and  a 
mammoth  tailor  shop." 

Flour  manufacture.  So 
much  for  a  typical  and  rank- 
ing animal-food  industry ;  we 
come  now  to  the  manufacture 
of  food  from  vegetable  products.  Here  we  have  selected  the  flour 
and  gristmill  production  as  the  most  important,  measured  by 
value  of  output,  and 
as  a  basic  form  upon 
which  many  others, 
such  as  baking,  rest. 
At  the  present  time 
flour  and  gristmill 
products  reach  an  an- 
nual value  of  nearly 
$900,000,000  ;  there 
are  about  40,000  wage- 
earners  employed  in 
making  them.  Our 
enormous  cereal  crops 
have  given  rise  to  an 
extensive  milling,  and 
each  advance  of  grain  production  has  been  followed  by  a  cor- 
responding increase  of  machinery  and  establishments  for  its 
manufacture. 


AN    EARLY    NEW    ENGLAND    MILL-WHEEL    USED 
FOR   (iRINDINC;    (iRAIN 


214 


IXnrSTRV  AND  TRADE 


Development  of  milling.  The  first  way  of  milling  grain  was 
with  tlic  teeth,  —  tiie  large  back  teeth,  which  we  still  call  grinders, 
or  molars,  —  but  it  was  not  long  till  men  came  to  use  two  stones 
for  the  puqjose.  They  have  used  two  stones  up  to  recent  times 
and  have  not  by  any  means  given  up  this  method  even  yet.  The 
first  flour  mill  in  American  history  was  the  hand  mill  —  two  small 
stones,  one  fitted  with  a  handle  so  that  it  could  conveniently 
be    rubbed    on    the    other.     But    in    early    colonial    times    there 

were  gristmills  run  by  wind  power. 
These  were  usually  subject  to  toll 
laws,  which  established  the  charge 
for  grinding  grain ;  thus,  though 
the  rates  were  not  uniform,  in  New 
England  the  toll  w-'as  usually  one 
sixteenth  of  the  wheat  and  one 
twelfth  of  the  Indian  corn  ground. 
Bolting,  the  process  of  sifting  the 
crushed  grain,  was  ordinarily  done  in 
the  home.  In  the  South  very  high 
tolls  were  exacted  ;  in  Maryland  in 
early  times  the  toll  was  one  sixth 
of  the  grain.  Later  on,  the  water 
mill  succeeded  the  earlier  devices, 
and  flour  became,  even  as  early  as 
the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  considerable  export. 
Milling  centers.  The  flour  mills  of  Delaware  on  the  Brandy- 
wine  were  very  celebrated  in  the  period  succeeding  the  Revolution. 
Twelve  such  mills,  with  twenty-five  pairs  of  stones,  ground  400,000 
bushels  of  wheat  per  annum.  The  town  of  Wilmington  was  ex- 
porting 20,000  barrels  of  superfine  flour  a  year.  There  were  1 30 
mills  within  a  radius  of  forty  miles,  and  contemporary  opinion 
had  it  that  the  manufacture  of  flour  was  carried  to  a  higher  de- 
gree of  perfection  on  the  Brandywine  than  in  any  other  state  in 
the  Union.  Baltimore  also  became  prominent  in  early  times  as 
a  milling  center ;  in  1 769  she  exported  40,000  tons  of  flour  and 


OLIVER   EVANS 


FOOD  AND   KINDRED  PRODUCTS 


215 


bread.  Baltimore  flour  was  regarded  as  of  superior  quality,  and 
that  city  was  the  first  milling  point  to  adopt  the  mechanical 
improvements  devised  by  Oliver  Evans,  who,  about  1785,  by  the 
introduction  of  the  elevator,  conveyer,  and  other  mechanisms,  com- 
bined the  various  stages  of  the  process  into  a  continuous  system, 
dispensing  with  half  of  the 
labor  formerly  required  and 
enabling  the  miller,  by 
machinery  alone,  to  take 
the  grain  through  "  from 
wagon  to  wagon  again." 
Next  to  Delaware  and 
Baltimore  came  Richmond, 
whose  flour  was  in  great 
demand  in  both  home  and 
foreign  markets  until  rela- 
tively recent  times ;  in 
1845  the  mills  of  Rich- 
mond included  the  largest 
in  the  country  and  their 
flour  commanded  the  high- 
est prices.  The  great  mar- 
ket for  Richmond  flour  was 
in  South  America. 

The  fame  of  Rochester. 
Rochester  and  the  Gene- 
see Valley  sprang  into  fame  for  their  flour  production  nearly  a 
century  ago  and  attained  and  held  celebrity  on  two  continents  for 
a  half-century.  Genesee  Valley  flour  repeatedly  took  prize  medals 
at  European  expositions.  Rochester  was  favored  for  production 
by  the  fact  that  the  Genesee  River  had,  within  the  city  limits, 
successive  falls  aggregating  268  feet ;  also  the  Erie  Canal,  the 
Genesee  River,  and  the  railroads  brought  to  the  Rochester  mills 
not  only  the  local  wheat  of  the  famous  valley  but  also  that  of 
Ohio  and  Canada.     Within   twenty-five  years  after  the   War  of 


(;kxi:si:e  falls  — kochkster,  xkw  york 


2l6 


IXnrSTRY  AND  TRADE 


i8i2  Rochester  erected  twenty -one  Hour  mills,  with  a  daily  capacity 
of  5000  barrels.  In  i860  there  were  nineteen  mills,  with  a  yearly 
product  valued  at  $2,500,000.  Rochester  continued  to  be  the 
Flour  City  of  the  continent  until  the  growth  of  its  nursery  busi- 
ness caused  it  to  be  denominated  the  Flower  City. 

Westward  movement  of  milling.  With  the  Western  movement 
of  the  grain  production  there  went  a  corresponding  migration  of 
the  milling  industr}-.    As  early  as  1840  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Indiana, 


^, 


-  •■5«. 


EARLY   SHIPPING   SCENE   ALONG   THE   ERIE   CANAL 

Illinois,  and  Michigan  together  produced  2,000,000  barrels  of 
flour,  which  constituted  about  30  per  cent  of  the  total  output  of 
the  country.  Twenty  years  later  the  Western  states,  so  called, 
were  producing  more  flour  and  other  milling  products  than  the 
New  England  and  Middle  States  combined.  New  York  was  still 
the  leader  in  value  of  flour  produced,  but  Ohio  stood  second, 
and  half  or  more  of  the  flour  manufactured  in  the  United  States 
was  produced  west  of  the  Alleghenies. 

Routes  of  shipment.  Long  before  the  flour-milling  industry 
developed  in  the  Northwest,  cities  like  Cincinnati  and  St.  Louis 
were  active,  for  the  first  trend  of  flour  production  toward  the  West 
was  down  the  Ohio  River ;   a  steam  flour  mill  was  in  operation 


FOOD  AND   KINDRED  PRODUCTS 


217 


in  Cincinnati  as  early  as  18 15.  Barges  took  the  flour  down  the 
Ohio  and  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans  before  the  time  when  the 
canals  and  railroads  began  to  stimulate  industrial  development  in 
the  upper  Mississippi  region.  But  after  1856  Cincinnati  was 
shipping  wheat  north  and  east,  and  New  Orleans  was  declining 
in  its  function  as  a  shipping  port  for  flour.  The  navigation  of 
the  rivers  was  uncertain  and  hazardous,  as  we  may  learn  from 


I'lLUTlXC,    UN    Till-:    MISSISSU'I'I    KI\  l-.K 


Mark  Twain's  account  of  piloting  on  the  Mississippi,  and  the 
warmth  and  moisture  of  the  Gulf  and  lower-river  climate  were 
dangerous  to  the  grain  and  flour.  When,  therefore,  the  Lakes, 
canals,  and  railroads  could  be  utilized  for  transportation,  the  direc- 
tion of  the  shipments  at  once  changed.  St.  Louis  continued  to 
manufacture  and  ship  flcAir,  however,  and  before  Minneapolis 
came  to  the  front  as  a  milling  center,  was  the  leading  flour 
manufacturing  point  in  the  country. 

The  rise  of  Minneapolis.   The  opening  of  the  r>ie  Canal,  in  1825, 
meant  a  powerful  stimulus  to  the  development  of  the  northwestern 


2I8 


INIHISTRY  AND  TRADE 


part  of  the  country,  and  wheat  and  flour  were  among  the  chief 
articles  of  freight.  By  1845  Ohio  stood  next  to  New  York  as  a 
wheat  producer  and  soon  thereafter  rose  to  the  top ;  in  1 860 
the  four  leading  wheat-producing  states  were  Illinois,  Indiana, 
Wisconsin,  and  Ohio,  all  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River,  Chicago 
had,  we  have  seen,  started  to  manufacture  flour  before  the  middle 
of  the  century,  and  Milwaukee  became  prominent  soon  after  the 


STOREROOM    IN    A    FLOUR    MILL,    MINNEAPOLIS 

Civil  War.  But  it  was  Minneapolis,  favored  by  position  in  rela- 
tion to  the  wheat  belt  and  advantaged  by  reason  of  its  abundance 
of  water  power  in  the  shape  of  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  that 
was  destined  to  become  the  chief  milling  center  of  the  land.  The 
industry  started  at  Minneapolis  with  a  small  government  plant, 
in  1823,  but  it  was  twenty  years  later  that  the  first  custom  grist- 
mill was  built ;  and  the  first  shipment  of  flour,  100  barrels  to 
Boston,  was  made  in  1859.  In  1865  there  were  running  six  mills 
whose  daily  capacity  was  800  barrels,  and  three  years  later  thir- 
teen, with  a  capacity  of  220,000  barrels.  Then  came  into  action 
the  big  mills  which  have  made  Minneapolis  famous. 


FOOD  AND   KINDRED  PRODUCTS  219 

Improvements  in  milling.  Pillsbury,  a  milling  expert,  speaks 
of  these  improvements  as  follows  : 

Down  to  1870  the  milling  process  in  the  United  States  was  that  invented 
by  Oliver  Evans  with  some  minor  and  gradual  improvements.  From  i  787  the 
nether  and  upper  millstones,  the  former  stationary  and  the  latter  balanced  to 
rotate  upon  it,  ground  the  flour  of  America.  The  stones  were  set  close  together 
to  produce  as  much  flour  as  possible  at  one  grinding.  This  produced  friction 
and  heat  and  brought  about  chemical  changes  which  injured  the  color,  taste, 
and  quality  of  the  flour.  In  the  early  milling  history  of  Minneapolis,  when 
enterprising  manufacturers  rushed  the  speed  of  stones  to  secure  a  large  product, 
the  flour  came  out  dark,  and  so  hot  the  hand  could  not  be  held  in  it. 

Under  these  conditions  of  milling  the  hard  spring  wheat,  espe- 
cially, made  a  dark-colored  flour  which  could  command  only  a 
low  price. 

The  passing  of  the  millstone.  Experiments  were  made  to  obvi- 
ate these  difficulties  and  resulted,  about  1870,  in  the  introduc- 
tion of  chilled-iron  and  porcelain  rollers  in  place  of  the  stones. 
Pillsbury  goes  on  to  say : 

The  grain,  in  place  of  being  ground  in  a  single  pair  of  millstones,  was  run 
through  six  or  seven  sets  of  rollers,  being  sifted  and  graded  after  each  break- 
ing by  the  rollers.  The  old  process  aimed  to  get  as  much  flour  as  possible  at 
one  grinding ;  the  new  seeks  to  get  as  little  flour  as  possible  at  the  first  two 
or  three  breakings.  The  old  millstones  were  set  so  close  together  that  the 
weight  of  the  upper  stone  rested  almost  wholly  upon  the  grain.  The  first 
rollers  in  the  new  process  are  set  so  far  apart  that  the  kernel  is  simply  split 
for  the  liberation  of  the  germ  and  crease.  The  old  process  sought  to  avoid 
middlings  as  far  as  possible,  because  they  entailed  loss  of  flour.  The  new 
process  seeks  to  produce  as  much  middlings  as  possible,  because  out  of  the 
middlings  comes  the  high-grade  patent  flour. 

This  new  process,  in  such  striking  contrast  with  the  old,  lent  itself 
to  the  rapid  development  of  the  milling  industry. 

The  export  of  flour.  For  the  first  half  of  the  last  century  flour 
was  one  of  our  leading  exports,  but  during  the  third  quarter  of 
the  century  the  export  trade  fell  off,  largely  because  of  the  rapid 
progress  in  the  technic  of  milling  in  Europe.  There  they  were 
developing   new   processes  while  we  clung  to  the  old  ;    and   so 


220 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


thev  imported  our  wheat  and  ground  it  themselves.  But  with 
our  adoption  of  improved  processes,  after  1870,  the  export  trade 
in  flour  took  on  a  new  lease  of  life. 

Present  condition  of  milling.  Mills  are  in  operation  at  the  present 
day  in  every  state  of  the  Union.  Minnesota  is  the  leader  in  value  of 
product,  followed  by  New  York  and  Kansas.  The  principal  grain 
ground  or  milled  bv  us  is  wheat,  and  corn  takes  second  place.    Our 

flour-  and  grist-mills 
have  constituted  one 
of  the  most  valuable 
industries  of  the  land ; 
for  a  time  it  led  all 
other  manufacturing 
industries  in  value  of 
annual  product,  but 
shortly  before  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  leadership  was 
taken  by  the  slaughter- 
ing and  meat-packing 
establishments.  These 
mills,  it  may  be  added 
in  conclusion,  produce 
great  quantities  of 
breakfast  foods,  such  as  rolled  oats  and  similar  articles. 

Other  food  industries.  There  are,  of  course,  many  other 
branches  of  the  food  (and  kindred  products)  industry  dependent 
upon  vegetable  materials.  Let  one  scan  the  catalogue  of  some 
great  mail-order  house  and  see  for  himself.  We  shall  mention 
several  of  the  most  important  and  illustrative  :  the  manufacture 
of  bread  and  bakery  products  ;  the  manufacture  of  confectionery 
and  ice  cream  ;  the  canning  and  preserving  of  fruits  and  vege- 
tables. Of  sugar-refining  we  have  made  some  mention  in  the 
foregoing,  and  the  industries  connected  with  the  roasting  and 
grinding  of  coffee  and  spice  are  by  no  means  insignificant. 


A    .MODERN    KAKPLKV 


FOOD  AND  KINDRED  PRODUCTS  221 

Conservation  of  food.  The  consumption  of  food  in  this  country 
has  always  been  lavish,  and  generally  wasteful.  Where  corn  was 
cheap  enough  to  burn  —  where  they  had  corn  to  burn,  so  to  speak  — 
nobody  was  going  to  make  a  great  effort  to  save.  Too  much  food 
was  eaten  for  the  health  of  the  eaters  ;  and  then,  again,  much 
was  half  eaten  and  thrown  away.  Tons  of  coal  have  been  rejected 
along  with  the  ashes,  and  tons  of  food  along  with  the  garbage, 
not  only  by  famihes  that  were  comfortably  off  but  even  by  those  of 
the  poor.  Tastes  have  become  finical  and  much  stress  has  been 
laid  upon  the  form  in  which  food  was  presented  for  sale  ;  this 
has  led  to  an  immense  industry  in  making  up  food  into  novel  or 
even  weird  form  and  to  the  prevalent  habit  of  buying  cereals  and 
other  foods  in  packages  or  jars,  all  of  which  have  to  be  paid  for 
in  the  form  of  higher  prices.  The  development  of  the  art  of 
advertising  in  connection  with  food  products  is  both  remarkable 
and  even  romantic,  though  it  may  not  be  edifying  or  speak  well 
for  the  common  sense  of  the  buying  public.  But  the  Great  War 
precipitated  a  food  shortage,  and  we  were  obliged  to  give  some 
thought  to  conservation  ;  a  food  controller  clothed  with  wide 
powers  was  appointed.  It  may  be  one  of  the  wholesome  results 
of  the  calamity  that  befell  the  civilized  world  that  we  shall  learn 
to  value  more  highly  our  food  supplies  at  something  more  nearly 
approximating  their  worth,  and  treat  them  accordingly. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


METALLIC  PRODUCTS 

Importance  of  the  metals.  The  transformation  of  metals  into 
metallic  products  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  human  achievements. 
In  the  most  primitive  times  it  was  regarded  as  at  least  a  semi- 
magical  process,  and  the  smith  was  both  respected  and  feared,  as 
being  a  magician.  There  was  that  about  the  processes  of  fusing 
and  alloying  that  caught  the  imagination,  and  all  sorts  of  poetical 
terms  and  expressions,  such  as  the  "  marriage  "  of  the  metallic 
elements,  grew  up  around  the  medieval  alchemy  (which  was  an 
eager  search  for  some  chemical  element  —  the  so-called  "philoso- 
pher's stone"  —  which  would  transform  baser  metals  into  gold). 
There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  despite  the  error  due  to  ignorance 
and  all  the  poetical  nonsense  connected  with  the  development  of 
metallic  processes,  the  enthusiasm  of  people  about  the  metals  and 
their  manipulation  was  prophetic  of  the  immense  importance 
which  metallic  products  were  destined  to  take  in  the  development 
of  civilization.  '"  No  single  thing,"  asserts  one  writer,  "  better 
measures  the  industrial  standard  of  a  nation  than  its  use  of 
metals."  But  a  high  civilization  always  has  to  rest  upon  a  strong 
industrial  structure  if  it  is  to  persist,  and  so  we  might  even  say  that 
a  people's  use  of  metals  is  a  pretty  good  index  of  its  civilization. 

Earlier  localization  of  iron  manufacture.  Strictly  speaking,  the 
smelting  of  metals  is  a  preparatory  process  to  manufacture.  We 
have  had  not  a  little  to  say  about  the  simpler  methods  of  iron- 
smelting  as  developed  in  this  country,  and  have  only  a  few  facts 


METALLIC  PRODUCTS 


223 


to  add  in  this  place.  It  is  clear  enough  that  in  the  early  periods  of 
our  history  local  smelting  of  iron  was  almost  universal,  but  that  there 
came  about  an  elimination  which  left  this  process  to  those  sections 
of  the  country  which  had  especial  advantages,  such  as  proximity 
of  mineral  fuel  and  mineral.  Pennsylvania  was  singled  out  for 
eminence  in  this  industry,  and  Pittsburgh  was  its  center  of  activity, 
for  this  city  had  also  ready  access  to  the  developing  Middle  West. 


A    MODKKN    nUJN    AMi   STEEL    TEANT 


Improved  processes.  And  then  came  improvement  of  processes. 
The  Cort  processes  for  puddling  and  rolling  were  the  first  which 
made  iron  plentiful,  and  for  the  first  three  quarters  of  the  last 
century  it  was  from  these  that  the  world  derived  its  supply  of  the 
metal  in  tough  form  suitable  to  resist  heavy  strains.  But  these 
processes  called  for  a  considerable  plant,  complex  machinery,  and 
strenuous  exertion  on  the  part  of  skilled  and  powerful  laborers 
—  factors  which  were  available  in  England,  with  the  result  that 


224  INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 

that  countty  held  the  supremacy  of  the  iron  trade  during  the 
period.  A  second  revolution  in  the  industry  occurred  between 
i860  and  1870  with  the  invention,  by  an  Englishman  named 
Sir  Heniy  Bessemer,  of  the  Bessemer  process  of  steel-making. 
By  this  process  much  time  was  saved.  The  ore  was  converted 
without  any  break  in  the  process  and  without  any  cooling,  once 
heat  had  been  applied,  directly  into  the  final  steel  product.  This 
demanded  still  larger  plants  and  more  elaborate  machinery,  and 
by  it  the  production  of  tough  iron  (also  called  "mild  steel")  be- 
came possible  on  a  vastly  greater  scale.  Bessemer  steel  has  dis- 
placed puddled  iron  in  most  of  its  uses,  and  the  increasing 
cheapness  and  abundance  of  supply  has  not  only  met  existing 
needs  but  also  opened  up  new  regions  of  demand.  The  first 
application  of  the  Bessemer  method  was  to  the  production  of 
rails,  but  new  and  wider  uses  were  all  the  time  found  for  the 
cheap  steel.  It  supplanted  wood  as  never  before,  and  from  the 
greatest  ships  down  to  the  smallest  nails  every  iron  instrument 
became  cheaper  and  better. 

Bringing  coal  and  iron  together.  The  Bessemer  process  required 
a  special  kind  of  ore  and  pig  iron.  Most  of  the  Eastern  ores  were, 
for  various  reasons,  unsuitable  for  the  process,  while  the  Lake 
Superior  iron  deposits  could  furnish  an  abundance  of  properly  con- 
stituted ore.  It  was  necessary  only  that  the  Western  ore  and  the 
coal  of  Pennsylvania  should  be  brought  together,  in  order  to  make 
huge  quantities  of  iron  and  steel ;  and  the  development  of  Lake 
transportation,  as  we  have  seen,  solved  that  necessity.  Then, 
within  the  last  few  decades,  resulted  that  unparalleled  growth  of 
our  iron  and  steel  industry  which  has  set  us  in  this  respect  in 
the  lead  among  the  nations,  our  annual  output  of  iron  and  steel 
being  nearly  half  of  the  world's  output. 

Foundries  and  rolling-mills.  But  the  manufacture  of  iron  and 
steel  is  but  begun  when  the  first  processes  formative  of  the  raw 
product  are  done.  The  foundries  and  rolling-mills  are  next  in 
order.  Roughly  speaking,  the  foundries  make  castings  by  pour- 
ing the  liquefied  metal  into  molds  of  various  sorts.    There  were 


METALLIC  PRODUCTS 


225 


foundries  in  operation  in  this  country  before  1750;  these  early 
plants  did  a  good  deal  of  custom  work  and  made  numerous  arti- 
cles, such  as  cooking  utensils,  for  domestic  use.  At  the  opening 
of  the  nineteenth  century  they  could  take  care  of  the  home 
demand  for  hollow  ware.  In  the  course  of  time  there  has  been 
great  specialization  in  this  branch,  so  that  instead  of  making  a 
variety  of  articles,  a  foundry  will  devote  its  efforts  to  the  manu- 
facture of  a  single  specialty,  such  as  stove-plates,  plow- iron,  or 
heavy  castings  for  engines.  Then  there  is  the  rolling-mill  for 
the  hot  rolling  of  iron  and 
steel  into  bars  and  rods, 
plates  and  sheets  (many  of 
them  for  subsequent  tinning, 
to  form  tin-plate),  rails, 
bands,  hooks,  or  structural 
shapes.  Up  to  i860  most 
of  the  rolled  product  used  in 
this  country  was  imported, 
but  thereafter  American  roll- 
ing-plants were  set  up.  The 
product  of  the  rolling-mills 
has  steadily  and  swiftly  in- 
creased, until  at  the  present  day  their  output  constitutes  a  large 
percentage  of  the  total  iron  and  steel  industry. 

Elaborated  iron  products.  The  products  of  the  further  working 
up  of  iron  and  steel  are  so  multiform  that  it  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion to  survey  them  otherwise  than  in  a  sort  of  special  encyclo- 
pedia, but  we  shall  illustrate  this  further  stage  of  manufacture 
by  several  selected  cases. 

Stoves  and  furnaces.  One  of  the  important  developments  of 
the  foundry  industry  is  the  manufacture  of  stoves.  The  growth 
of  the  market  for  stoves,  especially  coal  stoves,  went  along  with 
better  facilities  for  distribution  and  with  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation ;  and  the  demand  rose  with  the  housing  of  population 
in  buildings  put  up  after  the  economy  and  convenience  of  stove 


SLAB  ENTERING  ROLLS  TO  BE  ROLLED 
INTO  PLATE  OF  STEEL 


226  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

heating,  and  at  length  furnace  heating,  became  recognized.  Evi- 
dently the  large  modern  hotels  and  apartment  houses  could  never 
have  been  rendered  habitable  in  the  winter  on  the  old  plan  of 
fireplaces  or  by  the  first  simple  stoves.  By  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  our  annual  output  of  stoves  and  ranges  was  worth 
upwards  of  $6,000,000.  The  industry  centered  in  those  cities 
which  had  the  advantage  of  cheap  transportation  to  the  largest 
body  of  consumers ;  this  was  the  factor  that  favored  the  migra- 
tion of  stove  manufacture  to  the  West.  The  centers  of  this 
business  have  been  New  York,  Providence,  Philadelphia,  Albany, 
Buffalo,  Pittsburgh,  Cincinnati,  and  St.  Louis.  Stoves  are,  of 
course,  only  one  product  of  the  foundry ;  cast-iron  railings  and 
fences,  fountains  and  animals,  and  especially  wheels,  are  scattered 
examples  of  foundry  work.  Wheel-casting,  like  stove-making,  has 
come  to  be  a  specialized  industr)'. 

Tools  and  hardware.  Tools  and  other  hardware  represent  an 
important  branch  of  the  same  industry.  Until  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  or  later,  the  local  blacksmith  or  cutler 
made  the  American  mechanic's  tools,  and  there  was  no  great 
uniformity  about  them  in  the  matter  of  size,  shape,  and 
general  character.  Among  the  first  tools  made  in  this  country 
for  general  use  was  the  ax ;  by  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury most  axes  used  in  this  countr)'  were  of  domestic  manufacture, 
and  one  of  the  most  noted  ax  factories  in  the  world  was  estab- 
lished, in  1828,  at  Collinsville,  Connecticut.  Handsaws  and  mill 
saws  are  said  to  have  been  manufactured  in  Philadelphia  in  1 790 ; 
and  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  Disston  saw  factory 
was  one  of  the  largest  in  the  world.  Other  tools  for  the  carpen- 
ter were  manufactured  here  previous  to  the  War  of  18 12,  but 
the  tool  industry  did  not  get  firmly  on  its  feet  till  about  1830; 
by  that  time  there  were  cutlery  and  tool  works  at  Worcester, 
Paterson,  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  and  Chambersburg,  the  last 
of  these  towns  making  chiefly  carpenters'  tools.  Knives  of  all 
sorts  and  table  cutlery  were  manufactured  at  Worcester,  Nor- 
thampton, Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  and  Auburn.    Soon  after  1830 


METALLIC  PRODUCTS 


227 


such  industries  reached  Cincinnati,  but  in  i860  New  England 
still  produced  about  half  the  edge  tools  and  three  quarters  of  the 
cutlery  made  in  this  country. 

Prominence  of  New  England.  There  is  no  object  in  trying  to 
trace  in  detail  the  histoi-)-  of  hardware  manufacture  ;  it  is,  in  fact, 
so  varied  in  character  that  it  is  impracticable  to  render  a  brief 
account  of  it.  The  localization  of  this  form  of  metal  manufacture 
in   New    England  and   its    expansion    and    successive  stages  of 


A   GIIEAT    FACTORY    FOR   MAKING   SAWS 


organization  show  the  same  determining  factors  which  we  have 
already  seen  in  connection  with  other  such  enterprises.  Here, 
too,  it  was  the  Yankee  inventions  which  helped  to  hold  in  these 
vicinities  the  manufacture  of  clocks,  house  hardware,  and  the 
many  mechanical  devices  connected  with  what  might  be  called 
"  Yankee  notions." 

Ironworking  machinery.  Tools  were  thus,  at  first,  largely 
made  by  hand  ;  but  a  significant  development  emerged  j)resently, 
stimulated  probably  by  the  high  cost  of  labor  here,  in  the  form 
of  ironworking  machinery.  American  ingenuity  has  devised  all 
sorts  of  machines  for  fashioning  iron  and  steel,  thus  dispensing 


228 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


with  handwork  ;  this  is,  indeed,  so  characteristic  of  America  that 
we  are  usually  too  impatient,  as  well  as  too  ill-trained  for  the 
purpose,  to  undertake  industries  where  the  labor  has  to  be  pre- 
vailingly handwork.  The  result  is  that  our  factories  are  filled  with 
much  and  efficient  machinery  run  by  a  relatively  small  number 

of  operatives ;  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the 
operations  which  require 
the  expenditure  of  tre- 
mendous effort  or  of 
slight  effort  are  now  ex- 
ecuted by  machinery, 
and  are  performed  better 
and  faster  than  they  could 
be  by  human  labor.  This 
general  application  of 
machinery  to  the  work- 
ing of  metal  has  resulted 
in  the  establishment  of 
important  factories  for 
the  manufacture  of  iron 
and  steel  tools  and  ma- 
chinery. There  are  bor- 
ers, drills,  turning-lathes, 
planes,  hammers,  dies, 
shears,  rolls,  punches, 
screw  and  bolt  cutters, 
riveting  and  welding  machines,  cranes,  milling  machines,  polish- 
ers, and  numberless  other  devices,  with  many  forms  of  each. 
There  seems  to  be  no  limit  to  the  number  of  machines  which  can 
be  invented  for  working  iron,  some  noted  for  their  labor-saving 
services  and  others  for  their  apparently  superhuman  accuracy. 

Standardization  of  parts.  A  most  significant  development  of 
the  American  machine  and  machine-tools  industry  is  the  stand- 
ardization of  parts.    This  is  carried  to  a  high  degree  of  success 


MACHINE   FOR    TIGHTEXIXG    BARREL    STAVES 
AND   POUNDING   HOOPS   IN   PLACE 


METALLIC   PRODUCTS 


229 


wherever  a  large  product  is  put  forth  by  the  use  of  machine 
methods,  as  in  the  watch  industry,  where  a  timepiece  can  be  put 
together  by  selecting  one  each  from  piles  of  wheels,  main- 
springs, and  other  parts.  This  idea  of  interchangeable  parts  seems 
to  be  a  matter  hardly  worth  mentioning,  because  so  obvious  — 
it  is  taken  for  granted  ;  but  there  was  a  time,  not  so  many  decades 
ago,  when  it  was  very  difficult  to  have  a  broken  or  outworn  part 


ADJUSTIN"(;    A    Ni:\V    IXTEKCHAXGEAISLE    PART    OX    AN   OLD    MACHIXK 

of  a  machine  or  tool  replaced  without  having  it  specially  made. 
The  first  foreign  observers  of  this  American  method  were  aston- 
ished beyond  measure ;  but  now,  having  been  popularized  in 
world's  fairs  and  otherwise,  it  has  been  adopted,  as  possessing 
self-evident  advantages,  throughout  the  civilized  world. 

Engines.  We  might  go  on  indefinitely  with  metallic  products, 
confining  ourselves  to  iron  and  steel  alone  ;  but  we  have  selected 
only  one  further  example  of  this  order  —  engines,  chiefly  for  loco- 
motion. The  first  steam  engines  for  railroads  which  were  used 
in  the  United  .States  were  imported  from  England  ;  lliis  was  at 
the  very  (Aitsct  of  the  railway  era,  about  the  beginning  <>1  tlic  second 


230  INDrSTRV  AM)  TRADE 

quarter  of  the  last  century.  The  practice  did  not  last  long,  for 
a  number  of  concerns  undertook  to  build  engines  here,  with  the 
result  that  within  a  few  years  American  locomotive  shops  were 
able  to  meet  the  demand  of  the  railroads  of  the  country  ;  then,  after 
some  experimentation  in  the  East,  shops  were  opened  in  other 
parts  of  the  country.  From  their  early  and  humble  beginnings 
our  locomotives  have  increased  in  size  and  power  until  nowadays 
they  are  a  marvel  of  efficiency,  commanding  the  home-market  and 
being  found  on  railroads  in  practically  every  country  in  the  world. 


AN    EARLY   AMERICAN    LOCOMOTIVE    BESIDE   A   MODERN   GIANT    LOCOMOTIVE 

Early  engine  manufacture.  There  were  engines  built  and  in 
operation  in  this  country  before  the  railway  locomotives.  Soon 
after  the  Revolution  they  were  used  to  propel  ferryboats  and  for 
other  purposes.  Before  1810  engine  shops  were  constructed  in 
the  vicinity  of  New  York  City  and  at  Pittsburgh,  and  by  1820 
engine-builders  plied  their  trade  in  various  parts  of  the  country. 
Plants  were  likely  to  be  located  where  there  was  river,  lake,  or 
ocean  navigation ;  marine  engines  were  coming  into  demand. 
After  1830  there  was  a  demand  not  only  for  this  sort  of  engine 
but  also  for  engines  to  be  used  in  Eastern  factories,  in  steam- 
blowing  and  pumping  (in  particular  in  the  anthracite  mines  of 
Pennsylvania),  and  for  many  other  lesser  purposes.    This  led  to 


METALLIC   PRODUCTS 


231 


the  enlargement  of  the   engine-making  plants  on  the   seaboard 
and  to  the  improvement  of  their  equipment  and  methods. 

Locomotive  engines.  But  the  building  of  locomotives,  because 
of  patents  connected  therewith,  soon  became  a  distinct  branch  of 
manufacturing,  in  which  Philadelphia,  with  its  famous  Baldwin 
Locomotive  Works,  founded  in  1832,  took  the  lead.  Many 
engines  were  built  solely  for  foreign  buyers  ;  and  as  the  railroad 
development  went  on,  extensive  engine  shops  and  repair  works 
came  to  be  located  in  districts  widely  separated  from  one  another. 


A    NIXETKI-:.\Tn-(  KN'TIKV     DIWKK    Si;  1     .\IAI)K    FROM    SIll'.l'.TS    OF    MI'TAL 

Jewelry  and  silverware.  As  an  example  of  a  metal  industry 
quite  different  from  those  based  upon  iron  and  steel  or  copper, 
we  have  selected  the  jewelry  and  silverware  production  for  brief 
description.  It  is  known  that  there  were  several  shops  devoted 
to  this  industry  in  colonial  times;  and  about  1800  silver  plate 
and  gold-filled  jewelry  were  being  manufactured  in  Providence, 
Rhode  Island.  By  1830  various  towns  in  Massaclnisctts  were 
making  the  same  articles.  Precious  stones  had  llicir  principal 
market  in  New  York  City,  which  therefore  became  an  impoilant 
center  for  jewelry.  Very  little  silverware  was  used  by  the  early 
colonists,  for  they  were,  for  the  most  part,  too  poor.  It  was  not 
until  close  upon  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  the 


232  IXnrSTRV   AM)  TRADK 

manufacture  of  this  ware  began  to  develop.  At  this  time  there 
came  into  being  the  art  of  electroplating,  which  cheapened  the 
cost  of  tabic  silver  and  stimulated  its  output.  The  earlier  artisans 
who  had  worked  here  in  silver  made  their  articles,  such  as  dinner 
and  tea  sets,  by  hammering  out  the  pieces  from  flat  sheets  of  solid 
metal.  Silver-manufacturing  is  an  important  contemporary  indus- 
try in  this  country,  and  a  great  variety  of  ornamental  and  useful 
articles  are  on  the  market. 

Progress  of  the  metal  industries.  The  following  statements  will 
give  some  further  idea  of  the  present-day  importance  of  the  metal 
manufacture  of  the  United  States  and  of  its  development  in  recent 
years.  According  to  a  recent  Census  of  Manufactures  the  capital 
involved  in  the  manufacture  of  iron  and  steel  products  alone,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  numerous  other  metal  manufactures,  was  nearly 
double  that  invested  in  any  other  large  group  of  industries,  such 
as  the  textile  and  food-producing  groups.  The  wages  paid  in 
the  iron-and-steel  branch  of  the  industry  by  itself  exceeded  those 
paid  in  any  other  group  of  industries.  The  value  of  the  products 
of  the  iron-and-steel  branch  was  surpassed  only  by  that  of  food 
and  kindred  products  and  of  the  combined  textile  industries.  The 
value  added  by  manufacture  in  the  iron-and-steel  branch  alone 
was  greater  than  that  added  by  any  other  of  the  great  groups 
of  industries. 


CHAPTER   XX 

TEXTILES 

"What  they  include.  The  textile  industries  are  here  understood 
to  include  (i)  the  manufacture  of  various  fabrics  ;  (2)  the  conver- 
sion of  these  fabrics  into  articles  for  personal  wear  ;  and  (3)  the 
making  of  textile  products  other  than  those  for  personal  wear. 
The  second  and  third  of  these  evidently  depend  upon  the  first 
for  their  materials.  There  are  four  leading  materials  from  which 
the  textiles  manufactured  in  this  country  are  made,  —  cotton,  wool, 
flax,  and  silk, -  —  and  the  textile  industries  based  upon  these  mate- 
rials occupy  second  place  in  value  of  product  among  the  fourteen 
large  groups  of  industries  distinguished  by  the  Census  —  second 
only  to  those  producing  food  and  kindred  products.  However, 
on  the  basis  of  the  average  number  of  wage-earners  employed,  the 
textile  group  takes  first  place. 

The  colonial  industry.  Although  the  cotton  industry  takes  an 
easy  first  place  as  compared  with  the  other  members  of  the  textile 
group,  historically  it  was  later  of  development.  Woolen  and  linen 
cloth  for  domestic  use  was  "  homespun  "  in  early  colonial  times  ; 
it  was  not  until  the  arrival  of  immigrants  skilled  in  the  trade  that 
fulling  mills  were  built.  About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  Northern  colonies  were  making  practically  all  the  cloth 
they  needed  and  the  colonies,  as  a  whole,  about  three  quarters  of 
their  requirement.  The  product  was  of  a  very  coarse  grade,  and 
throughout  the  colonial  period  England  and  Ireland  furnished  the 
bulk  of  the  finer  (lualitics  of  linens  and  other  textiles. 

^33 


234 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


Linen.  As  late  as  1810  flax  exceeded,  in  this  country,  both 
cotton  and  wool  as  a  textile  fiber.  The  first  factories  were  estab- 
lished shortly  after  the  Revolution  and,  from  flax  and  hemp, 
produced  canvas,  cordage,  sailcloth,  and  other  articles  in  domestic 
demand.  These  early  manufactories  were  in  New  England  and 
had,  of  course,  no  power-driven  machinery.  Bounties  were  offered 
to  encourage  the  production  of  the  articles  just  mentioned,  but 
when  they  were  removed  the  industr\^  languished.    Factories  were 

established,  as  time 
went  on,  for  making 
finer  goods  from  flax, 
but  the  growing  as- 
cendancy of  cotton 
checked  their  devel- 
opment; a  mill  per- 
sisted here  and  there, 
but  the  industry  did 
not  attain  any  impor- 
tant dimensions  prior 
to  the  Civil  War ;  in 
1 860  we  were  making 
only  about  $800,000 
worth  of  linen  goods. 
In  fact,  the  development  of  the  industry  was  slow  until  the  opening 
of  the  twentieth  century,  when  it  had  reached  a  product  value 
of  about  $4,000,000 ;  since  then,  however,  this  figure  has  nearly 
doubled.  Formerly  large  quantities  of  our  flax  were  used  for 
making  twine  and  cloth,  but  now  the  situation,  despite  the  growth 
of  the  linen  industry,  has  shown  something  of  a  shift ;  there  has 
been  a  marked  decrease  in  the  production  of  flax  for  textile  pur- 
poses, almost  all  the  flax  crop  being  now  utilized  for  the  seed, 
from  which  linseed  oil  is  made. 

Woolens.  The  British  government  discouraged  the  production 
of  woolen  goods  in  colonial  America,  wishing  to  preserve  the 
market  for  the  English  product ;  the  export  of  woolens  and  even 


Till'.    (II. I)    .MI.IHOIJ    OF    S1'I.\X1.\(,    FLAX 


TEXTILES 


235 


the  transfer  of  certain  woolen  goods  from  colony  to  colony  were 
forbidden.  Imported  woolens  were  expensive,  and  so  we  find  the 
colonists  wearing  leather  garments  like  the  Indians.  But  the 
British  laws  did  not  forbid  household  production,  and  the  spinning 
and  weaving  of  cloths  and  blankets  went  on  in  the  home.  In  1790 
there  were  a  few  woolen  factories  in  the  country,  but  they  were  not 
prosperous.  The  industry  was  stimulated  during  the  Embargo  and 
the  wars  that  culminated  in  the  year  181  5,  but  it  was  hampered 


MODKRX    .Sl'lXMM,    AIACUINK 


at  the  same  time  by  an  insufficiency  of  domestic  wool  and  by  taxes 
on  imported  wool.  It  is  said  that  factory-made  woolen  goods 
increased  in  value  between  18 10  and  181 5  from  $4,000,000  to 
$19,000,000.  Then  followed  a  period  of  depression,  and  it  was 
not  until  1830  that  woolen  manufacturing  got  its  first  good  start. 
The  woolen  industry  slower  in  starting.  The  specialized 
manufacture  of  woolens  and  mixed  cloths  was  a  later  development 
in  America  than  that  of  cottons.  Part  only  of  the  raw  materials 
needed  was  produced  in  this  country  ;  and  the  transition  from 
household  to  factory  spinning  was  made  harder  by  an  accom- 
panying change  of  spinning  fibers.  The  processes  in  making 
woolen  goods  are  more  complex  than  those  used  for  cotton, 
demanding  experienced  hands  in  cloth-making  and  in  dyeing  and 


236  INDL  SIRV  AND    IRADE 

finishing  as  well ;  and  so  it  took  longer  to  develop  automatic 
macliincrv  for  wool-working  than  for  cotton-working,  and  there 
was  a  smaller  held  for  the  employment  of  unskilled  labor  and  for 
the  use  of  power  —  two  conditions  of  great  importance  in  the 
competition  with  Europe.  Also  the  prosperity  of  this  industry 
was  peculiarly  affected  by  the  various  changes  in  tariff  legislation. 

Progress  of  the  industry.  The  start  attained  in  1830  carried 
the  industry  along,  and  it  was  enabled  to  make  use  of  the  power 
loom  in  manufacturing  hosiery,  carpets,  and  other  products.  This 
development  occurred  chiefly  in  the  Middle  States,  where  the  wool 
was  grown;  half  of  the  woolen  mills  of  1850  were  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, New  York,  and  Ohio,  The  early  woolen  manufacture,  as 
in  the  case  of  cotton,  was  strongly  intrenched  in  New  England, 
but  lack  of  domestic  raw  wool  held  it  back.  In  i860  there  were 
nearly  1500  woolen-manufacturing  plants  in  the  countr}^,  employ- 
ing about  50,000  operatives  and  turning  out  an  annual  value  of 
nearly  575,000,000.  Then,  between  i860  and  1880,  appeared  a 
remarkable  growth  of  the  business,  due  in  good  part  to  the  falling 
off  of  cotton  production,  during  the  Civil  War  time  and  later,  and 
to  the  extraordinary  demand  for  woolens  for  the  armies.  The 
various  branches  of  woolen  manufacture  have  continued  to  ex- 
pand, during  the  last  few  decades,  along  such  lines  as  woolens, 
worsteds,  felt  goods,  carpets,  and  rugs,  until  at  the  present  day 
there  are  about  $500,000,000  in  capital  invested  and  an  annual 
value  of  product  of  something  like  $500,000,000.  An  interesting 
feature  of  our  woolen  manufacture  is  the  large  number  of  small 
mills  scattered  all  over  the  country  —  a  relic  of  colonial  condi- 
tions ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  factories  is  where  the  population  is, 
Massachusetts  holding  first  place  for  woolens  and  worsteds  and 
third  place  for  carpets.  New  York  leads  in  carpet  manufacture, 
in  which  detail, .  both  as  to  quantity  and  variety,  we  surpass  all 
other  nations. 

Cotton  goods.  Cotton  manufacture  is  the  typical  fiber-working 
industr)'.  We  are  already  introduced  to  it  in  part,  from  what  has 
been  said  earlier  about  cotton.    In  the  chapter  on  cotton  we  have 


TEXTILES 


237 


taken  up  something  about  the  elementary  processes  of  spinning 

and  weaving.    We  have  seen  that  the  invention  of  the  gin  was 

the    turning    point    in    the    industry,    for    the    product   was    so 

cheapened  as  to  bring  it  within  the  reach  of  the  people  as  a  staple 

for  clothing  manufacture  ;  it  also  led  the  industry  out  of  the  home 

and  into  the  factory.    The  period  between   18 10  and   1830  was 

the  time  when  this  movement  was  making  itself  most  strongly  felt. 

But  the  construction  of  textile-manufacturing  machines  and  their 

introduction  into  American 

factories    was    a    process 

fraught     with     difficulty ; 

England,  wishing  to  secure 

and    keep   the   monopoly 

of  the  industry  for  herself, 

prohibited  the  exportation 

of  machines  and  also  plans 

and  models  of  machines. 

American    manufacturers 

had  to  smuggle  in  what 

machinery   and    machine 

drawings  they  could  get. 

American  cotton  machinery, 
not  so  long  after  the  English 


THE   I-TRST   SPINNING   JENNY 


was 
that 


But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
machines  were  in  operation 
they  were  duplicated  in  this  country  ;  it  is  said  that  the  first  cotton 
factory  in  this  country  was  built  in  Beverly,  Massachusetts,  in 
1787;  and  then  factories  were  established  in  New  York,  Penn- 
sylvania, and  Rhode  Island.  The  credit  for  building  the  first 
complete  cotton  machinery  and  operating  it  in  a  factory  goes  to 
Samuel  Slater,  sometimes  called  the  Eather  of  American  Manu- 
factures, who  set  up  his  business  in  Pawtucket,  Rhode  Island,  in 
1799.  But  development  was  slow;  in  1804  only  four  cotton 
factories  were  to  be  found  in  the  country. 

Eminence  of  New  England.  Then  New  England  began  to  take 
hold,  investing  in  the  new  industry  the  capital  previously  em- 
ployed   in    ship])ing,    but    later    ivndcre.d    idle    b\-   the    P'.mbargo. 


238 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


In  1808  there  were  in  New  England  8000  cotton  spindles  in 
operation,  three  years  later  80,000,  and  by  the  close  of  the 
War  of  1 81 2  half  a  million  ;  and  the  figures  for  consumption  of 
cotton  by  domestic  manufacturers  confirm  this  fact  of  rapid  ex- 
pansion. Up  to  18 14  machines  did  the  spinning,  while  the 
weaving  was  done  on  hand  looms  and  in  the  home ;  but  in  that 

year  the  various  processes 
of  spinning  and  weaving 
were  brought  for  the  first 
time  under  one  roof.  This 
was  at  Waltham,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  Lowell's  fac- 
tory, which  has  been  called 
the  first  complete  factory 
in  the  world.  Nearly  all  of 
the  early  textile  mills  being 
very  poorly  constructed  and 
meagerly  equipped,  they  con- 
sequently turned  out  only 
the  coarser  grades  of  prod- 
ucts. But  the  factory  sys- 
tem spread  rapidly,  and  the 
factory  towns  grew  up  on 
the  streams  of  New  Eng- 
land and  the  Middle  States. 
Such  towns  were  Lowell, 
Lawrence,   Holyoke,  and  Fall   River,  in  Massachusetts. 

The  industry  preceding  the  Civil  "War.  The  general  depression 
following  the  close  of  the  war  period  that  ended  in  1 8 1 5  was  felt  in 
the  cotton  industry  ;  only  the  best  located,  managed,  and  equipped 
mills  survived  after  1820.  By  1824,  however,  the  cotton  industry 
was  on  a  sound  basis,  and  from  that  time  on  has  shown  steady 
growth;  by  1830  the  United  States  was  surpassed  only  by  Eng- 
land in  the  amount  of  raw  cotton  consumed  annually.  At  that  date 
over  $40,000,000   were  invested  in  cotton  manufacturing,  over 


SAMUEL   SLATER 


TEXTILES 


239 


77,000,000  pounds  of  raw  cotton  were  used  annually,  and  the 
value  of  the  manufactured  product  was  about  $26,000,000.  The 
industry,  as  we  have  seen,  came  early  to  be  located  in  New  Eng- 
land, which  possessed  a  number  of  the  advantages  named  above 
(p.  201)  as  favorable  to  industrial  development.  As  early  as  1840 
New  England  mills  were  turning  out  about  three  quarters  of  our 
cotton  goods.    By  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  nearly  $100,000,000 


CARIJl\(i,    DKA\V1\(;,    ROVING,    AND   SPINN1N(;,   AS   INTKOUUCEI)    liY 
SAMUEL   SLATER 


were  invested  in  the  business,  over  422,000,000  pounds  of  raw 
cotton  were  consumed  annually,  120,000  people  were  employed 
in  the  mills,  and  the  value  of  the  manufactured  product  exceeded 
$115,000,000.  Over  85  per  cent  of  the  cotton  goods  consumed 
in  this  country  were  being  made  here,  only  the  finer  qualities 
being  imported ;  and  besides  controlling  the  domestic  market, 
we  had  an  important  export  business. 

The  industry  after  the  war.  The  Civil  War,  which  resulted  in 
the  cutting  off  of  sup[)]ics  of  raw  cotton,  rendered  two  thirds  of 
the  spindles  in  the  country  idle  ;  but  there  was  a  ra])id  recovery 


240 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


afterwards.  Between  i860  and  1880  the  amount  of  raw  cotton 
consumed,  and  the  number  of  spindles  in  operation  as  well, 
doubled.  Great  improvements  were  made  in  processes  of  manu- 
facture, steam  was  more  and  more  replacing  water  power  in 
factory  operation,  and  conditions  were  coming  into  being  which 
were  to  allow  cotton  factories  to  locate  in  the  South. 

Development  in  the  South.    This  development  in   the  South 
represents  a  striking  change  in  the  cotton  industry.     North  and 


t^mfimMmMmrMn 


COTTON    MILL    L\    THE    SOUTH 


South  Carolina  and  Georgia  especially  showed  marked  progress  ; 
the  value  of  the  cotton  products  of  these  three  states  constituted 
6.2  per  cent  of  the  total  in  1880,  as  against  29.7  per  cent  in  19 10. 
During  the  same  period  the  capital  invested  in  Southern  cotton 
mills  increased  from  about  $22,000,000  to  $360,000,000  ;  the 
number  of  spindles  rose  from  about  600,000  to  nearly  4,400,000  ; 
and  the  consumption  of  raw  cotton  from  about  200,000  bales, 
of  500  pounds  each,  to  2,500,000.  This  desirable  result  was 
due  to  the  usual  combination  of  advantages  :  proximity  to  raw 
materials,  excellent  water  power,  and  a  supply  of  cheap  labor ; 
and  it  was  attained  largely  at  the  expense  of  New  England  mills 
and,  still  more,  of  those  of  Europe. 


TEXTILES 


241 


Advantages  of  New  England.  New  England,  however,  has  not 
by  any  means  been  driven  from  the  field  :  Fall  River  and  New 
Bedford,  Massachusetts,  are  the  leading  cotton-manufacturing 
cities  of  the  country,  New  Bedford  being  probably  the  producer 
of  the  best  cotton  cloth  made  in  New  England.  The  labor  situation 
in  the  New  England  tex- 
tile industries  is  typical  of 
American  industry  in  gen- 
eral. Although  the  New 
Englanders,  after  a  cen- 
tury's experience  as  tex- 
tile workers,  are  skilled 
operatives,  the  industry 
no  longer  depends  upon 
native  stock.  Within  re- 
cent decades  large  num- 
bers of  French  Canadians 
have  come  from  Quebec 
to  the  mill  towns  of  New 
England.  Here  they  find 
employment  which  is  lack- 
ing in  their  own  country, 
with  its  large  and  rapidly 
increasing  population.  In 
recent  years  larger  num- 
bers of  Europeans  also 
have  come,  with  the  result  that  the  mill  towns  show  many  languages. 
Thus  has  New  England  also  been  provided  with  a  relatively  cheap 
class  of  labor,  comparable  in  some  respects  with  that  of  the  South. 

Present  conditions.  At  present  there  are  about  1300  cotton 
manufactories  in  the  country  ;  the  capital  invested  is  about  $900,- 
000,000,  and  the  annual  value  of  the  product  is  over  5^700,000,000. 
In  this  matter  of  value  of  product  Massachusetts  is  easily  the 
leader,  followed  by  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and 
Rhode  Island. 


(JATHERIXG    MULUF.URV    LKAVES    FOR 
SILKWORMS 


242 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


Silk.  Silk  manufacture  was  the  latest  of  its  group  to  extend 
outside  the  household.  Silk  was  raised  in  the  eighteenth  century 
in  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  Pennsylvania,  and  Connecticut,  and  as 
early  as  1790  bolting  cloths  were  made  at  Wilmington,  Delaware, 
and  small  goods  at  Philadelphia,  from  American  materials.  Con- 
necticut manufactured  several  hundred  pounds  of  sewing  silk 
annually,  in  households,  and  sold  it  at  home  and  in  neighboring 
states.  But  there  was  no  manufacturing  enterprise  of  any  impor- 
tance in  this  earlier 
period. 

Development  of  the 
silk  industry.  Sixty 
years  were  necessary 
to  teach  Americans 
that  they  could  not 
raise  silk  with  profit ; 
in  fact,  the  highest  ex- 
pectations along  this 
line  were  seen  in  the 
late  thirties,  during 
which  ^  period  house- 
hold manufacture  of 
silk  persisted,  and 
mills  used  domestic  materials.  In  18 10  reeling  and  twisting  were 
done  by  water  power  in  certain  Connecticut  villages  ;  and  between 
that  time  and  1840  plants  designed  to  use  American  silk  were 
started  at  a  number  of  scattered  places,  both  within  and  without 
New  England.  Some  of  these  undertakings  were  successful  and 
worked  out  valuable  improvements  in  the  machinery  used  ;  but 
most  of  them  failed,  either  because  they  lacked  raw  materials 
or  because  they  lost  in  silk-raising  more  than  they  earned  in  silk 
manufacture.  Some  of  the  states,  but  not  the  national  govern- 
ment, gave  legislative  encouragement  to  this  industry.  The 
unwinding  of  the  cocoons  and  the  conversion  of  their  material 
into  a  continuous  and  even  thread  requires  skill  and  patience, 


UNWINDING   THE   SILK    FROM    A   COCOON 


TEXTILES 


243 


together  with  labor  that  is  both  skillful  and  cheap.  But  these 
factors  could  not  be  found  in  America,  for  this  sort  of  labor  could 
not  be  procured  here  ;  and  so  certain  preliminary  but  essential 
processes  never  came  to  be  performed  economically  and  perfectly 
on  a  scale  to  support  mill 
industries. 

The  industry  after  1840. 
Americans  could  manufacture 
silks  well  enough,  even  though 
they  could  not  raise  the  raw 
material ;  that  is,  they  could  do 
that  which  did  not  demand 
patience  so  much  as  originality 
in  devising  machines  and  labor- 
saving  devices  generally.  They 
were  making  ribbons  and  trim- 
mings in  1 8 10;  and  the  whole 
situation  was  solved  about  1840, 
when  China  began  to  send  us 
raw  silk  in  quantities.  During 
this  period  the  mills  ceased  to 
depend  upon  local  material. 
Between  1840  and  i860  there 
was  a  marked  advance  in  the 
industry,  notably  in  making 
sewing  silks  ;  a  number  of  small 
factories  were  built  up,  promi- 
nent among   which    was    one 

at  South  Manchester,  Connecticut,  now  a  model  manufacturing 
town  containing  one  of  the  largest  silk  plants  in  America.  Yet 
by  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  silk  industry  was  still  an 
infant :  in  i860  the  product  of  all  our  silk  mills  was  worth  about 
$6,500,000  annually,  of  which  value  sewing  silk  contributed  more 
than  half.  The  invention  of  the  sewing  machine  in  the  middle 
of  the  century  gave  a  stimulus  to  the  demand  for  sewing  silk,  and 


A    Sn.K    LOOM    WEAVING    DESIGNS 
IN    SII.K 


244  INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 

machine  twist  was  beinj:;  produced  in  1.S52  ;  but  it  was  not  until 
after  the  Civil  War  that  ribbons  and  dress  goods  were  manufactured 
in  any  quantities. 

Recent  development.  The  Civil  War  was  succeeded,  as  we 
have  seen,  by  remarkable  growth  in  the  cotton  and  woolen 
manufacture  ;  but  a  development  still  more  wonderful  took  place 
in  the  case  of  silk.  The  value  of  silk  products  increased  from 
the  $6,500,000  of  i860  to  $41,000,000  in  1880  and  has 
continued  to  rise  rapidly  ever  since.  There  are  now  about  nine 
hundred  establishments,  as  compared  with  three  hundred  and 
eightv  in  1880;  these  employ  over  100,000  operatives,  and  the 
annual  value  of  their  output  is  about  $250,000,000.  Pennsylvania 
is  the  most  distinctively  silk-manufacturing  state,  though  Paterson, 
New  Jersey,  is  still  referred  to  as  "  the  Lyons  of  America." 

Other  fibers.  The  manufacture  of  fibers  other  than  the  ones 
we  have  mentioned  is  relatively  unimportant.  One  illustration 
may  be  given.  The  manufacture  of  hemp  was  a  rather  important 
industr)'  in  colonial  times  and  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  there- 
after ;  hemp  was  used  for  making  cordage  and  bagging  —  in  fact, 
the  manufacture  of  these  products  and  of  sailcloth,  articles  much 
needed  in  commerce  and  fishing,  was  one  of  the  earliest  indus- 
tries of  the  nation.  The  manufacture  of  hemp  migrated  west- 
ward ;  about  1850  Missouri  became  a  rival  of  Kentucky,  and  of 
the  9,540,000  yards  of  bagging  reported  by  the  Census  of  i860 
the  latter  state  made  about  5,750,000  and  Missouri  about 
2,000,000  less.  Hemp  production  has  decreased  along  with 
that  of  flax. 


^M^/i?.,i»V-^4^;.--.,,v^^,-j^.,^^>^  ■""''' 


CHAPTER.  XXI 


LUMBER  AND  PAPER 


Importance  of  wood.  The  really  indispensable  articles  to  man's 
life  on  earth  are  few  and  simple,  but  one  of  them  is  wood.  The 
savage  has  often  gotten  along  without  metal,  but  he  has  had  to 
have  wood  for  fuel  and  shelter.  The  only  notable  exception  is 
the  Eskimo  of  the  Far  North,  and  it  is  only  by  the  exercise  of 
the  utmost  ingenuity  that  he  gets  on  with  the  few  pieces  of  drift- 
wood that  fall  to  him.  He  has  become  an  expert  in  the  use  of 
bone  in  making  tools  and  weapons  and  of  snow  for  winter  shelter. 
The  little  wood  that  comes  to  him  is  very  highly  prized  ;  in  fact, 
small  and  weak  pieces  of  driftwood  are  skillfully  pieced  and  glued 
together  to  make  a  block  big  enough  to  do  anything  with.  This 
was  in  the  time,  of  course,  before  the  white  man  came  to  him  ; 
and  the  whole  story  but  illustrates  to  what  limits  men  may  be 
driven  in  the  absence  of  this  basic  natural  resource.  Hardly  any 
other  part  of  the  natural  environment  enters  more  intimately  and 
vitally  into  the  life  economy,  and  certainly  into  the  beginnings  of 
the  industrial  career,  of  the  human  race  ;  consequently  a  country 
with  extensive  forest  areas  is  at  an  advantage  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  and   in   the  competition  with  other  countries. 

Our  forest  resources.  We  have  already  described  thr  forest 
resources  of  our  country  and  have  seen  that  originally,  in  both 
extent  and  value,  they  were  unsurpassed  by  those  of  any  other 
civilized  country  ;  that  we  have  carelessly  spent  these  resources, 
so  that  approximately  one   half  of  the  value  of  our   forests   has 

245 


246 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


been  used  up  ;  and  that  a  conservation  movement  is  now  on  foot 
whose  aim  is  to  have  the  annual  growth  at  least  equal  the 
annual  drain. 

Early  processes.  The  luiropean  colonists  who  began  our 
national  history  were  forced  to  start  the  business  of  lumbering 
at  once ;  they  had  to  build  themselves  shelter  and  they  were 
obliged  to  clear  land  for  cultivation.  The  houses  were  made  of 
lofrs.  and  whatever  boards  or  shingles  were  needed   had  to  be 


LOG   CABIN   OF   AN   EARLY   SETTLER 


hewn  out  or  split  by  hand.  The  invention  of  the  sawmill  was 
an  important  incident  in  colonial  history.  It  was  invented  in  this 
country  in  1633.  Sawmills  were  located  on  eligible  streams,  and 
settlements  were  not  infrequently  determined  by  the  presence  of 
a  stream  affording  water  power.  Mills  were  in  existence  in  vari- 
ous places  in  New  England  by  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  spread  to  other  parts  of  the  country  as  these  were 
settled  ;  the  sawmill  followed  the  pioneer  wherever  he  went,  after 
as  well  as  before  the  Revolutionary  period.  The  simple  mills  of 
the  day  cost  anywhere  from  fifty  to  five  hundred  dollars,  usually 
formed  a  combination  with  grist-milling,  —  so  that  the  log-owner 


LUMBER  AND  PAPER 


247 


paid  the  miller  for  the  sawing,  —  and  produced  a  rather  petty 
product.  The  census  of  1840  reports  over  30,000  lumber  mills, 
with  a  total  product  value  of  nearly  $13,000,000,  or  more  than 
$400  per  mill.  For  the  first  four  decades  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  exports  of  timber  rarely  exceeded  $5,000,000  a  year. 

Lumbering.  This  timber  business,  however,  was  of  importance 
to  the  population.  For  shipbuilding  large  timber  was  needed,  and 
there  were  often  cut  single  pieces  that  brought  two  hundred 
dollars  or  more.  Lumber  was  carted  to  town  like  farm  produce. 
One  Saturday  in  18 16  there  arrived  in  Belfast  between  three  and 
four  hundred  sleighs  loaded 
with  lumber,  and  in  1822, 
in  a  single  day,  1 36,000  feet 
were  brought  there  by  team. 
Lumber  was  in  reality  a 
sort  of  by-product  of  land 
development. 

Localization  of  the  in- 
dustry. The  application  of 
the    steam    engine    to    the 

sawmill  changed  the  character  of  this  industry.  Where  formerly 
the  mills  hugged  the  streams  at  some  local  or  general  fall  line, 
they  now  could  follow  the  timber ;  and  where  formerly  the  logs 
were  floated  downstream  to  their  destination  (which  was  another 
reason  why  lumbering  stuck  to  the  rivers),  now  the  industry 
came  to  be  closely  associated  with  railroads  and  railroad-building. 
A  sort  of  intermediate  stage,  in  s(jme  places,  was  where  the 
timber  was  transported  by  canal.  The  modern  development  of 
lumbering  has  been  connected  with  railroad  extension  more 
closely,  probably,  than  that  of  any  other  industry.  Not  seldom 
"haS'Tlie  lumberman  been  a  pioneer  in  railroad  building,  and  not 
a  few  roads  of  to-day  were  laid  down  rather  recently  as  part 
of  a  local  lumbering  enterprise.  Large-scale  production  followed 
upon  the  extension  of  railroad  transportation,  and  this  was  concen- 
trated in  the  soft-wood  areas,  where  a  highly  developed  variety  of 


ICING   A   SLED   ROAD   IN   A   LUMBER   CAMP 


24S  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

sawmill,  differing  materially  from  the  earlier  type,  accompanied 
a  much  more  intensive  organization  of  the  industry.  White-pine 
lumbering  in  the  states  around  the  Great  Lakes  produced  a  num- 
ber of  big  organizations  with  large  capitalization,  and  Southern 
and  Western  lumbering  largely  imitated  the  methods,  which  had 
alreadv  gained  much  prestige,  of  the  great  Northern  pine  region, 


A    STEAM    SAWMILL 


Shifting  of  the  industry.  Three  causes  have  combined,  since 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to  bring  about  a  shift  of 
the  scene  of  large-scale  lumber  production  in  the  United  States  : 
first,  railroad  development ;  second,  concentration  of  manufacture ; 
and  third,  destruction  of  forest  areas  by  fire.  These  factors  have 
brought  to  pass  a  rapid  exhaustion  of  the  forests  and  a  conse- 
quent necessity  for  the  industry  to  seek  new  fields.  In  1850 
the  northeastern  states  furnished  54.5  per  cent  of  our  lumber,  the 
Lake  states  6.4  per  cent,  the  Southern  states  13.8  per  cent,  and 


LUMBER  AND  PAPER  249 

the  Pacific  states  3.9  per  cent.  In  1880  these  percentages  were  24.8, 
33.4,  1 1.9,  and  3.5  respectively.  In  1914  they  were  9.0,  10.5, 
47.7,  and  19.3  respectively.  The  figures  for  intervening  decades 
show  that  this  movement  was  a  constant  and  consistent  one. 
And  this  shift  has  meant  change  in  the  nature  of  the  output : 
white  pine,  which  used  to  constitute  about  half  of  the  total  prod- 
uct, is  now  something  like  a  tenth  ;  and  the  leading  woods  now 
cut  are  yellow  pine,  Douglas  fir,  white  pine,  hemlock,  oak,  spruce, 
and  Western  pine. 

Importance  of  the  industry.  Lumbering  is  now,  as  it  always 
has  been,  one  of  the  basic  industries  of  the  country.  There  are 
over  eight  hundred  thousand  wage-earners  employed  in  the  pro- 
duction of  lumber  and  in  its  re-manufacture,  and  as  an  agency  of 
employment  of  labor  this  industry  is  surpassed  only  by  farming, 
railroading,  and  mining.  In  value  of  product  lumbering  and  con- 
nected enterprises  stand  fifth  in  the  list  of  groups  of  industries  — 
after  the  food,  textile,  iron  and  steel,  and  chemical  groups. 

The  planing  mill.  We  turn  now  to  illustration  of  the  indus- 
tries consequent  upon  and  allied  with  lumbering.  The  planing 
mill  produces  a  large  number  of  commodities,  such  as  sashes,  blinds, 
doors,  interior  woodwork,  moldings,  and  a  great  number  of  minor 
products  connected  with  building  and  other  operations.  Here  are 
products  worked  up  from  the  raw  timber  and  approximately  ready 
for  use,  needing  only  the  fitting  in  at  the  hands  of  the  local  artisan. 
'  The  furniture  industry.  Then  there  is  the  furniture  industry, 
which  has  grown  to  large  proportions.  This  industry  deserves 
particular  mention.  It  was  built  up  in  this  country  from  very 
humble  beginnings.  At  first  much  of  the  furniture,  and  practi- 
cally all  of  the  finer  variety,  was  imported  from  T^ngland  —  cabi- 
nets, chairs,  tables,  chests,  and  beds.  These  were  highly  valued, 
as  one  can  see  from  reading  the  wills  of  colonial  times:  a  man 
will  be  found  to  have  carefully  enumerated  sucii  possessions,  leav- 
ing his  bed  to  this  person,  his  favorite  chair  to  another,  and  so 
on.  Furniture  was  imported  because  the  colonists  lacked  line  tools 
and  technical  knowledge;  and  then,  again,  they  were  all  more  or 


250 


INDrslRV   AND  TRADE 


less  pressed  by  the  necessity  of  producing  food  and  other  articles 
of  an  indispensable  order.  Fine  furniture  was  a  luxury  on  the 
frontier,  and  whatever  was  homemade  was  of  the  rudest  descrip- 
tion, as,  for  example,  the  schoolroom  benches  without  backs,  the 
discomforts  of  which  have  been  set  forth  in  novels  and  stories  of 
colonial  and  frontier  days. 

Its  earlier  development.    The  local  furniture  business  started, 
of  course,  in  the  local  carpenter  shop.    Here  were  fashioned  plain 


AN    EARLY    EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY   SCHOOLHOUSE 

hardwood  chairs,  benches,  and  bedsteads  "  strong  as  a  house." 
Everything  w'as  massive  and  there  was  no  pretense  of  style ;  native 
W'Ood  was  used,  for  the  mahogany  and  other  more  elegant  furni- 
ture was  imported.  It  was  not  until  after  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  that  furniture-making  began  to  be  separated 
from  general  carpentry  work  ;  and  it  was '  stimulated  during  the 
War  of  1812  by  an  import  tax.  In  181 5  there  were  a  good 
many  furniture-makers  at  work  in  the  large  centers  of  population, 
and  American  ideas  began  to  appear.  The  rocking-chair  was  an 
American  product  and  also  the  art  of  veneering.  Furniture  soon 
came  to  be  lighter,  handsomer,  and  cheaper.  The  demand  in- 
creased ;  for  while  in  the  earlier  period  the  home  was  but  scantily 
furnished,  now  families  bought  a  dozen  pieces  where  they  had 


LUMBER  AND  PAPER 


251 


formerly  bought  one.  By  the  middle  of  the  century  the  domestic 
furniture  manufacture  had  complete  control  of  the  domestic  market, 
and  the  only  importation  was  of  the  most  fashionable  and  costly 
varieties,  in  total  value  not  comparing  with  that  of  the  American 
product.  The  use  of  machinery,  the  better  transportation,  the 
specialization  of  the  cabinet  shop  which  confined  itself  to  furni- 
ture, the  new  devices  which  were  always  being  invented — these 
factors  caused  the  industry  to  assume  large  proportions,  so  that 
in  1850  the  value 
of  furniture  produced 
was  about  $ 1 5,000,000 
and  the  employees 
numbered  37,000. 

Progress  since  the 
Civil  War.  The  in- 
dustry suffered  much 
by  reason  of  the  Civil 
War,  but  it  revived 
promptly  and  has  had 
an  almost  unbroken 
prosperity  since.  The 
bulk  of  the  manu- 
facturers engaged   in 

making  a  product  appropriate  for  the  homes  of  the  masses  at  a 
price  within  reach  of  all.  Improvements  in  woodworking  machin- 
ery have  made  it  progressively  advantageous  to  replace  handwork 
by  imitating  it  to  a  high  degree  of  nicety.  New  models  and 
new  articles  have  been  evolved  :  it  is  said  that  the  bureau,  the 
folding  bed,  and  most  of  the  combination  pieces  which  can  be 
used  to  economize  space  in  small  city  apartments  arc  of  Ameri- 
can origin.  Many  changes  have  been  made  in  the  varieties  of 
wood  used  :  early  in  the  nineteenth  century  mahogany,  maple, 
and  black  walnut  were  the  mode  ;  then  cherry  and  ash  became 
common  ;  about  1880  oak  came  into  prominence  ;  and  at  present 
mahogany,  curly  birch,  and  maple  are  used  in  the  better  grades 


FURNITURE   OF   THE   COLONIAL   PERIOD 


252  lNI)LSrK\    AM)    IRADK 

of  furniture.  There  have  been  notable  changes  also  in  the  style 
of  upliolstering,  the  haircloth,  favored  years  ago,  having  been 
supplanted  by  a  variety  of  more  pleasing  textures  and  colors. 

Present  conditions.  At  the  present  day  the  United  States  is 
the  most  important  manufacturer  of  furniture  in  the  world,  and, 
in  addition  to  the  control  of  the  domestic  market,  we  also  are 
the  greatest  exporters  of  this  product,  which  we  send  to  all  parts 
of  the  civilized  world.  The  present  value  of  our  annual  furniture 
production  is  about  twice  the  value  of  the  1899  product/  The 
greatest  increase  in  business  has  taken  place  in  states  of  large 
population  —  New,  York,  Pennsylvania,  Illinois,  Ohio,  Michigan, 
and  Wisconsin.  The  superior  character  of  the  wood  in  certain 
parts  of  these  last  two  states  is  largely  responsible  for  their 
standing  in  the  industry.  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  for  example, 
is  a  very  important  center  for  furniture  manufacture,  although 
its  population  is  small.  The  cities  which  figure  most  promi- 
nently in  the  manufacture  of  furniture  are  Chicago,  New  York, 
Grand  Rapids,  Philadelphia,  and  St.  Louis.  The  states  whose 
products  have  the  greatest  value  are  New  York,  Illinois,  Michigan, 
Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  and  Wisconsin.  / 

Paper 

Early  stages  of  paper-making.  Paper-making  is  an  ancient 
art ;  the  Egyptians  made  paper  from  the  papyrus  plant  (whence 
the  name),  though  it  was  not  much  like  what  we  now  call  paper. 
The  Moors  in  Spain,  however,  eight  or  nine  hundred  years  ago, 
manufactured  a  product  more  like  ours  ;  paper  mills  are  said  to 
have  been  in  operation  there  as  early  as  io<S5.  The  invention  of 
paper-making  in  the  modern  sense  thus  came  before  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  but  until  the  press  was  at  work  the  consump- 
tion of  paper  was  small.  Books  were  too  rare  and  expensive  to 
cause  any  demand  for  paper  competent  to  summon  an  industry  ' 
into  being.  The  development  of  the  newspaper  was  what  created 
the  big  demand.    It  is  recorded  that  the  first  news  sheets  were 


LUMBER  AND   PAPER 


253 


r  .  ,11,     j/f. 


printed  in  England  in  1622,  and  soon  thereafter  arose  a  con- 
siderable demand  for  these  and  for  pamphlets  and  books.  Paper 
mills  then  attained  some  prominence  in  Europe,  and  their  output 
was  relatively  large. 

Use  of  linen  rags.  The  first  paper  material  was  vegetable  fiber, 
and  a  wide  variety  was  tried.  Then,  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
linen  rags  came  to  be  employed  ; 
at  this  time  the  clothing  worn 
in  countries  like  France,  Spain, 
Portugal,  and  Italy,  even  among 
the  peasantry,  was  largely  linen, 
and  much  cast-off  clothing  was 
available  for  rags.  In  the  seven- 
teenth century  these  countries 
and  Holland  gained  considerable 
reputation  for  papers  made  from 
linen ;  but  when  cotton  came 
into  common  use,  cotton  rags 
supplanted  linen  rags,  just  as 
cotton  cloth  had  superseded 
linen  cloth. 

Paper  manufacture  in  the 
colonies.  When  the  colonists 
came  to  America  they  soon 
became  great  users  of  paper. 
Oiled  paper  was  used,  in  the 
absence  or  costliness  of  glass,  for  the  windows.  Printing  was  soon 
developed  here,  and  newspapers  and  pamphlets  appeared  in  rela- 
tive profusion  ;  many  sermons  were  printed.  In  short,  paper  was 
consumed  in  comparatively  large  cjuantities  and  figured  promi- 
nently among  the  imports.  The  English  government  forbade 
paper  manufacture  in  the  colonies,  but  mills  were  started,  none 
the  less,  there  being  one  near  Philadelphia  as  early  as  1693.  At 
the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century  there  were  paper  factories 
in    Massachusetts,  lY'nnsylvania,    and    New  Jersey ;    and    shortly 


THE   EGYPTIAN   PAPYRUS   PLANT 


254 


INDUSTRY  AM)    I'RADE 


before  the  Revolution  there  were  forty  factories  in  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey,  and  Delaware.  These  factories  used  cotton  or  linen 
rags.  After  the  Revolutionary  War  broke  out  paper  importations 
were  cut  off,  which  stimulated  paper-making  here  :  the  paper  for 
the  Continental  notes  was  made  in  Pennsylvania,  and  in  1791 
Hamilton  lists  paper  manufacture  as  one  of  the  most  important 


THE   INTERIOR   OF   A    MODERN'    PAPER    MILL 


industries  of  the  country.  The  qualities  made  were  of  great  variety 
—  for  writing,  printing,  wrapping,  sheathing,  for  the  covering  of 
walls,  and  so  on. 

The  use  of  machinery.  The  earlier  papers  were  handmade,  for 
paper-making  machinery  was  rare.  Then,  early  in  the  last  cen- 
tur}-,  came  the  Fourdrinier  machine,  by  which  the  fluid  stock  is 
manufactured  into  finished  paper  by  an  automatic  process.  As 
long  as  the  product  was  handmade  the  output  was  bound  to  be 
slight,  but  the  introduction  of  large  machines  made  possible 
an  immense  increase  in  product.  Paper-making  machines  were 
brought  to  the  United  States  about  1820,  but  we  soon  began  to 


LUMBER  AND  PAPER 


255 


make  our  own.  These  machines  were  a  great  boon  to  Americans  : 
labor  here  w^as  high  and  hand  manufacture  costly,  and  the  Ameri- 
can genius,  as  we  have  already  shown,  lies  in  processes  which  do 
not  require  so  much  time  and  patience.  The  greatest  develop- 
ment and  perfecting  of  paper-making  machinery  has  come  since 
the  Civil  War. 

The  use  of  wood  pulp.  Along  with  the  great  improvements 
made  in  paper  manufacture  has  gone  great  change  in  the  material 
from  which  the  stock  is 
made.  Many  articles  are 
still  used  for  paper-making, 
but  the  cheapness  of  wood 
pulp,  with  such  an  abun- 
dance of  wood,  altered  the 
whole  business  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  last  century. 
Many  varieties  of  wood  have 
been  tried,  but  perhaps  the 
most  available  is  spruce.  The 
pulp-wood  is  cut  into  lengths 
suitable  for  grinding  and  the 
bark  removed ;  then  the 
blocks  are  held  firmly  against 

a  revolving  grindstone  and  gradually  reduced  to  a  mushy  consist- 
ency, or  pulp.  This  pulp-wood  is  the  basis  for  all  lower  grades  of 
paper.  The  wood  is  often  treated  nowadays  by  a  chemical  process 
instead  of  being  ground  ;  this  is  an  American  invention  first  used 
in  1867. 

Recent  developments.  Paper-making  has  become  an  important 
American  industry  only  since  about  1870,  for  until  then  very  little 
wood  pulp  was  used,  and  the  wholesale  character  of  manufacture 
could  not  appear.  To-day  this  pulp  is  the  main  source  of  the 
world's  paper  supply,  and  it  has  changed  the  location  of  our  paper 
mills.  They  used  to  be  found  in  the  large  centers  of  population, 
along  the  small  streams,  and  on  the  borders  of   or  even  within 


A   C0.\\'KV(JR    BV   WHICH    LOGS   ARK    CAR- 
RIED IN  A  PAPER  MILL 


256  INDUSTKN    AM)    IKADK 

cities  and  towns;  but  since  1890  the  industry  has  migrated  to 
the  forest  areas,  especially  those  of  New  York  and  New  England, 
where  the  desirable  spruce  is  to  be  had.  A  great  deal  of  power 
is  required  in  paper-making,  and  this  is  supplied  mainly  by  water. 
Because  the  northern  New  England  states  and  New  York  had 
both  the  spruce  and  the  water  power,  they  have  become  the 
greatest  paper-manufacturing  districts  in  the  United  States.  Massa- 
chusetts too  has  the  water  power  and  is  near  enough  to  get  pulp 
from  the  Northern  forests  ;  it  has  also  a  skilled  labor  supply  and 
is  near  both  to  the  centers  of  population  and  to  those  ports 
through  which  enters  the  supply  of  rags.  It  should  not  be 
thought  that  paper-making  from  rags  has  passed  utterly  away ; 
it  is  still  an  important  branch  of  the  industry  and  produces  the 
finest  and  costliest  paper,  chiefly  for  writing.  Holyoke,  Massa- 
chusetts, is  a  notable  paper-manufacturing  center,  especially  for 
fine  writing  paper  made  from  textile  fragments. 

Rapidity  of  recent  development,  llie  rapidity  of  development 
of  the  paper  indifetry  can  be  judged  from  the  following  figures.  In 
1869  the  value  of  the  output  of  our  paper  mills  was  $48,000,000; 
$57,000,000  in  1879;  $79,000,000  in  1889;  $127,000,000  in 
1899;  $267,000,000  in  1909;  at  the  present  day,  over  $300,- 
000,000.  The  states  which  figure  most  prominently  in  the  indus- 
try are  New  York,  Massachusetts,  Maine,  and  Wisconsin,  but 
a  number  of  others  have  an  important  output  of  wood  pulp  and 
paper.  The  United  States  ranks  first  among  the  countries  of 
the  world  as  a  producer  of  this  commodity. 

Wall  paper.  We  wish  to  select  one  variety  of  paper,  namely, 
wall  paper,  by  way  of  illustration  of  the  special  development  of 
the  industry.  This  is  an  article  whose  use  is  traceable  to  the  Old 
\\' orld,  but  it  was  of  little  interest  to  the  colonists  ;  only  in  homes 
of  wealth  was  wall  paper  to  be  found  before  1750.  Whitewashed 
walls  were  regarded  as  the  proper  thing,  and  this  fashion  persisted 
down  to  the  Revolution.  In  fact,  "  wall  hangings  "  is  a  better 
name  for  w^hat  later  became  wall  paper ;  for  even  the  w^ealthy, 
who  imported  such  articles,   merely  hung  them  up  against  the 


LUMBER  AND  PAPER  257 

walls,  so  that  they  could  be  moved  about  and  from  house  to 
house.  Shortly  before  the  Revolution  some  few  wall  hangings 
were  manufactured  here,  and  though  the  paper  was  very  poor, 
its  use  revolutionized  house  decoration  in  this  country.  Until 
near  the  middle  of  the  last  century  American  makers  of  wall 
papers  did  not  undertake  to  cater  very  much  to  the  demands  of 
wealth  and  taste,  but  engaged,  rather,  in  supplying  the  masses 
with  cheap  hangings.  It  was  shortly  before  the  middle  of  the 
century  that  the  first  important  advance  was  made  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  industry  for  printing  wall  papers  ;  machines  were  im- 
ported in  1844.  Previously  the  printing  had  been  done  by  hand 
and  the  value  of  the  annual  output  was  small ;  there  were  only 
five  factories,  employing  some  five  hundred  men  and  producing 
a  product  whose  annual  value  was  only  ^250,000.  But  by  1S60 
there  were  twenty-six  establishments,  making  about  $2,000,000 
worth  of  paper  hangings  a  year  ;  and  now  there  arc  about  fifty 
factories  whose  annual  output  is  valued  at  $16,000,000. 

Styles  in  wall  paper.  We  may  conclude  with  a  quotation  from 
Holies,  written  in  1878,  which  sheds  some  little  light  upon  the 
fashion  in  house  decoration. 

Not  only  are  the  styles  of  paper  constantly  changing,  but  the  tastes  of  peo- 
ple also  change  concerning  their  use.  Only  a  few  years  ago  it  was  generally 
believed  that  many  kinds  of  wall  paper  were  unhealthy,  because  of  the  poison- 
ous ingredients  put  in  the  coloring  materials ;  while  the  paste  used  in  sticking 
papers  to  the  wall  attracted  moisture,  making  rooms  damper  than  they  would 
otherwise  be.  Accordingly,  a  period  of  general  wtill-scraping  was  inaugurated. 
Having  thoroughly  cleaned  off  old  paper  and  paste,  walls  were  painted ;  it 
being  everj'where  admitted  that  the  colors  adopted  were  healthy,  as  well  as 
more  pleasing  to  the  eye.  But  now  taste  is  setting  once  more  in  the  opposite 
direction,  colored  walls  are  being  recovered  with  paper,  the  most  stylish  mode 
of  putting  it  on  being  to  use  three  shades,  —  the  lightest  shade  for  the  middle 
or  body  of  the  wall,  a  darker  shade  for  the  top  and  a  still  darker  for  the 
bottom.  By  and  by  we  shall  doubtless  hear  of  another  change,  made  as  sud- 
denly as  this;  and  perhaps  wall  papers  may  be  discarded  altogether. 

Here  speaks  more  wisely  than  he  knows  a  kindh'  satirist  of 
fashion,   for  thus  it  swings  from  one  extreme  to  (he  other. 


2  5S  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Other  uses  of  paper.  Some  of  the  uses  of  paper  could  scarcely 
have  been  anticipated  years  ago.  We  hear  of  paper  car  wheels, 
and  the  latest  years  have  seen  the  development  of  a  prosperous 
business  in  making  paper  roofings.  Such  roofings  are  of  tarred 
paper  strewn  with  powdered  stone  ;  they  are  readily  and  speedily 
put  on  in  long  and  wide  overlapping  strips,  will  shed  rain  per- 
fectly, and  last  for  many  years.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  what 
might  have  been  the  astonishment  of  the  Egyptian  who  first 
made  papyrus  paper  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  had  he  realized 
some  of  the  uses  to  which  the  offspring  of  his  invention  were  to 
be  put. 


1*^L^ 


^^^'•~'^^-"  ■^'*''^-    ■  < 


-'^^g5^r»/^^^r)^. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

LEATHER  AND  RUBBER 

Skins  as  clothing.  Leather  is  the  tanned  hide  of  animals, 
chiefly  nowadays  of  cattle  and  horses  and,  less  commonly,  of 
sheep,  goats,  and  other  smaller  beasts.  The  untanned  skins  of 
wild  and  domesticated  animals  constituted  the  first  clothing  that 
deserved  the  name  ;  man  took  the  coat  off  the  animal  and  put  it 
on  himself.  Thus  leather  long  antedated  textiles  for  body  protec- 
tion. But  it  was  necessary  to  treat  the  hides  in  order  to  render 
them  pliable  enough  for  use,  and  gradually  processes  correspond- 
ing to  what  we  call  tanning  were  developed.  The  Indian  women 
used  to  scrape  the  bison  hides  until  they  were  thin  and  then  make 
them  still  more  pliable  by  rubbing  in  the  brain  or  fat  of  the 
animal.  They  certainly  had  attained  the  art  of  treating  skins  and 
pelts  ;  of  the  quality  of  their  deerskin  garments  nothing  but  good 
can  be  said.  But  the  skins  were  cured  by  smoking,  for  they  did  not 
understand  the  use  of  oak  or  hemlock  bark  in  genuine  tanning. 

The  leather  industry  in  the  colonies.  The  American  colonists 
carried  on  the  tanning  process  at  an  early  date,  and  almost  every 
village  had  its  tannery  ;  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  was  a  tanning 
center  as  early  as  1647.  In  some  of  the  colonies  laws  were 
passed  at  an  early  date  regulating  the  disposal  of  hides  and  tan- 
ning in  general,  as,  for  example,  in  Massachusetts  in  1642. 
Butchers,  curriers,  and  shoemakers  were  prohibited  from  tanning, 
for  the  idea  was  to  make  this  a  separate  occupation  ;  only  a  tanner 
was  allowed  to  buy  a  hide.    Also  it  was  against  the  law  to  sell 

259 


26o 


INDUSTRY   AND  TRADE 


poorlv  tanned  leather ;  curriers  were  instructed  as  to  how  their 
part  of  the  work  was  to  be  done,  and  shoemakers  could  use  only 
leather  which  was  marked  and  guaranteed  by  the  inspectors  to  be 
a  first-class  product.  In  1646  this  colony  forbade  the  exportation 
of  raw  hides  or  of  leather  that  had  not  been  worked  up  ;  and 
other  colonies  passed  similar  regulations.  The  attention  devoted 
to  the  business  shows  its  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  settlers. 

Tanning.  Tanning  is  a  process  calculated  to  fill  the  pores  of 
leather  and  make  it  lasting.  It  consists  mainly  in  so  treating  the 
skins  that  thev  are  freed  from  flesh   and  fat  and  then  soaking 


SEASONING    LEATHER    BV    KUBKING    IT    WITH    OIL 

them  in  a  liquid  containing  some  tanning  preparation.  In  early 
times  the  process  was  a  long  one  and  lasted  from  a  year  to 
fifteen  months,  but  it  was  effective  and  the  leather  was  almost 
indestructible  ;  when  skins  were  finally  certified  as  being  tanned, 
they  were  really  tanned,  not  merely  doctored  up  with  chemicals. 
Until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  tanning  material 
was  hemlock  or  oak  bark.  Then,  as  the  forests  were  cut  away 
and  more  and  more  hides  appeared  for  treatment,  new  tannin 
products  were  forthcoming  from  different  parts  of  the  world.  But 
as  long  as  the  vegetable  tannin  was  in  common  use  the  location 
of  hemlock  and  oak  forests  largely  determined  the  location  of 
the  industry.  Then,  about  1850,  came  the  discovery  that  tanning 
could  be  done  without  the  use  of  vegetable  materials  ;  that  is,  by 
the  use  of  chromium  compounds.  The  development  of  this 
process  of  tanning  occurred  in  Philadelphia,  which  soon  became 
the  leading  leather-manufacturing  city  of  the  world. 


LEATHER  AND   RUBBER 


261 


Varieties  of  leather.  The  hides  of  all  sorts  of  animals  are  now- 
made  into  leather.  Fur-bearing  pelts  are  tanned  without  disturb- 
ing the  hair.  Thus  are  produced  a  great  variety  of  leathers  :  the 
heavy  hide  is  made  into  sole  leather  and  into  material  for  belting 
and  harness  ;  calfskin  finds  its  principal  use  in  the  uppers  of 
boots  and  shoes  and  in  bookbinding ;  sheepskin  is-  employed  for 
shoe-linings,  whips,  aprons,  and  gloves  ;  goatskins  are  adapted  to 
the  manufacture  of  gloves  and  ladies'  shoes  ;  pigskin  is  used  for 


COLORIXC;    ANO    FIMS1IIX(;    LEATHKK 

making  traveling  bags  and  saddle  parts ;  dogskin  is  in  great 
demand  for  gloves,  and  horsehide  for  the  toughest  and  roughest 
hand  wear.  Porpoise  hide  will  make  good  and  durable  leather. 
Though  it  is  now  used  almost  solely  for  shoestrings,  the  time  will 
doubtless  come  when  this  resource  will  be  better  utilized.  In 
addition  to  this  list  of  leathers,  the  kangaroo,  alligator,  elephant, 
rhinoceros,  walrus,  and  shark  furnish  their  peculiar  varieties. 
Leather  is  becoming  so  scarce  and  high-priced  nowadays  that 
leather  substitutes  are  getting  into  the  market  ;  in  Germany, 
where  the  Great  War  occasioned  various  clever  economies,  it  is 
said  that  a  shoe  with  only  the  uppers  of  leather  and  the  sole 
made  of  thin  and  pliant  wood  is  found  to  be  practicable. 

Boots  and  shoes.    WHien  we  consider  the  uses  of  leather,  the 
first  thing  we  think  of  is  boots  and  shoes  ;  and  there  can  be  no 


262 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


better  example  of  the  practical  utility  of  this  product.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  saddler  and  shoemaker  followed  close  upon 
the  tanner,  and  by  1731  Americans  were  almost  fully  supplied 
with  shoes  of  their  own  manufacture.  Shoemakers  were  located 
in  towns  and  also  went  from  house  to  house  working  up  the 
family  leather  supply  ;  so,   too,  cobblers  went  about  from  house 

__     to  house.   Massachusetts  even 

manufactured  a  surplus  of 
shoes,  which  were  sold  in 
other  colonies  and  in  the 
West  Indies.  An  impetus 
was  given  the  shoe  industry 
when,  in  1764,  the  colonists 
showed  their  resentment  of 
England's  placing  of  duties 
on  American  imports  by  re- 
fusing to  buy  British  goods. 
During  the  Revolution  there 
was  great  suffering  from 
scarcity  of  shoes  and  leather, 
but  the  industry  revived  after 

1783. 

Importation  of  hides.  Since 
we  had  not  enough  hides, 
these  were  imported  from 
South  America  and  the  East ;  the  cattle  industry  of  this  country 
has,  as  we  have  seen,  made  extraordinary  progress,  but  we  have 
not  been  able  to  supply  ourselves  with  leather  and  have  kept  on 
importing  hides  until  to-day  they  constitute  one  of  the  principal 
items  among  our  imports.  We  have  raised  our  cattle  chiefly  for 
meat,  not  hides  ;  and  the  two  purposes  are  not  so  easily  combined, 
for  the  best  leather  comes  from  tough,  rangy  steers  whose  beef  is 
inferior.  The  preparation  and  manufacture  of  leather  from  both 
our  own  domestic  product  and  from  these  importations  have 
been  developed  by  the  United  States  until  we  lead  the  world  in 


BEFORE   THE   IXVEXTION   OF   SHOE 
MACHINERY 


LEATHER  AND  RUBBER  263 

this  line.  And  although  there  are  many  distinct  varieties  —  not 
to  mention  qualities  —  of  leather  goods,  the  most  important 
branch  of  this  business  is  the  one  we  have  started  out  to  survey, 
namely,  the  boot  and  shoe  manufacture. 

Prominence  of  Massachusetts.  Massachusetts  easily  leads  the 
country'  in  this  industry  ;  her  leadership  dates  very  far  back  and 
has  already  been  referred  to  as  an  illustration  of  the  advantage  of 
an  early  start.  As  early  as  1635  a  skillful  shoemaker  settled  in 
Lynn,  and  fifteen  years  later  the  town  was  making  more  shoes 
than  were  made  in  any  other  town  in  the  colony  or  e\'en  in  the 
countr)'  —  especially  women's  shoes,  which  were  largely  of  cloth. 
But  most  of  the  shoemakers  of  this  period  were  quite  unskilled, 
and  even  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  well-made 
shoes  were  derived  almost  solely  from  England.  Lynn,  however, 
was  the  chief  source  of  supply  for  New  England,  and  marketed 
shoes  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  even  farther  south.  In 
1750  another  superior  shoemaker,  a  Welshman,  settled  in  this 
town  and,  because  of  his  skill,  soon  became  locally  known  as  "  the 
celebrated  shoemaker  of  Essex  "  (the  county  in  which  Lynn  is 
situated).  From  him  a  number  of  local  people  acquired  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  art,  and  the  business  of  the  town  increased. 
In  1764  it  was  reported  in  the  London  Chronicle  that  the 
women's  shoes  made  at  Lynn  exceeded  in  beauty  and  strength 
any  that  were  usually  imported  from  London.  The  towns  of 
eastern  Massachusetts  provided  the  Revolutionary  army  with  most 
of  its  shoes,  and  in  1788  Lynn  alone  exported  100,000  pairs,  a 
figure  which  rose  to  300,000  in  1795.  Lynn  had  such  a  reputa- 
tion for  the  rapid  manufacture  of  shoes  that  a  legend  developed 
to  the  effect  that  the  materials,  having  been  stuck  to  the  wall 
with  an  awl,  were  combined  in  the  proper  manner  by  a  blow  of 
the  lapstone  skillfully  aimed  at  them.  It  was  asserted  that  boots 
and  shoes  grew  spontaneously  at  Lynn.  In  any  case,  for  over 
two  centuries  this  town  has  had  an  ascendancy  in  the  American 
shoe  manufacture,  and  all  this  was  due,  we  are  told,  to  the  fact 
that  the  Welshman  settled  there  rather  than  elsewhere. 


264 


ixnrsTRv  AM)  tradp: 


Improvements  in  manufacture.  Great  improvements  have  been 
made  in  the  shape,  style,  and  durabihty  of  American  shoes  since 
1750.  This  is  due  partly  to  imitation  and  partly  to  Yankee 
ingenuity,  also  in  some  degree  to  the  improved  quality  of  the 
leather  for  uppers,  resulting  from  superior  splitting  and  currying 
processes.  Methods  of  manufacture  have  been  much  improved. 
In  the  old  days  shoes  were  sewed  by  hand,  and  the  American 
invention  of  the  shoe  peg  did  not  come  till  18 18.  This  invention 
had  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  industry  ;  the  pegs  were  first 
made  by  hand,  tlien  bv  machinery,  and  had  a  big  market  among 


.\IAKIN(7    CUbTO.M    SHOES 


shoemakers  all  over  the  countr)'  when  it  was  discovered  how 
much  cheaper  pegging  was  than  sewing.  In  fact,  numerous  estab- 
lishments soon  appeared  which  made  nothing  but  pegs;  it  is  re- 
ported that  the  tradition  was  current  in  New  England  that  at  one 
time  shoe  pegs  became  so  plentiful  and  cheap  that  artful  specula- 
tors tried  to  sell  them  to  farmers  as  a  new  variety  of  seed  oats. 

The  use  of  machines.  The  invention  of  the  sewing  machine 
was  opportune  for  this  industry,  for  it  was  adapted  to  the  purpose 
and  diminished  hand  labor  very  greatly,  also  taking  the  manufac- 
ture out  of  the  domestic  field  into  the  factor)^,  where  large  numbers 
of  the  new  machines  could  be  operated  by  power.  Machines  were 
built  for  pegging  shoes  and  for  smoothing  the  rough  soles  after 
the  pegging  ;  lasts  too  were  made  by  machinery,  and  so  hand  labor 


LEATHER  AND   RUBBER 


265 


was  further  diminished  or  done  away  with  altogether.  Since  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  it  has  been  the  labor-saving  machinery 
that  has  made  our  boot  and  shoe  industry  what  it  has  become  ;  the 
shoe  factory  is  a  product  of  the  latter  half  of  the  century,  and  the 
hand  processes  have  been  disappearing.  In  constructing  a  shoe  there 
is  at  the  present  day  a  perfect  system  of  continuous  manufacture 
involving  nearly  a  hundred  opera- 
tions, and  machinery  is  being  con 
tinually  improved,  the  keenness 
of  competition  forcing  factories  to 
adopt  new  devices  at  once.  Aftei 
the  general  adoption  of  machinery 
came  a  noteworthy  concentration 
of  manufacturing  in  Massachusetts  , 
Brockton,  Lynn,  and  Haverhill 
together  have  produced  about  a 
fifth  of  all  the  shoes  made  in  the 
country  and  half  of  all  made  in 
the  state.  Other  important  centers 
are  St.  Louis,  Boston,  New  York, 
Manchester  (New  Hampshire),  Cin 
cinnati,  Rochester,  and  Philadelphia 

The  industry  in  the  West.  The 
establishment  of  boot  and  shoe  fac 
lories  in  parts  of  the  country  other 
than  eastern  Massachusetts  was  not 
undertaken  until  well  along  in  the  last  century,  and  it  was  due 
lo  the  enterprise  of  certain  individuals  who  set  out  to  avoid  the 
heavy  expense  of  shipping  a  commodity  like  shoes  from  the  East 
to  the  great  markets  in  other  parts  of  the  land.  There  are  now 
numerous  well-equipped  and  prosperous  factories  throughout  the 
West  and  even  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

Rapid  strides.  The  development  of  the  industry  during  the  la.st 
few  decades  has  been  remarkably  rapid;  since  1S79  the  number 
of   establishments  has  decreased,    but  tiicrc  has   been   a   marked 


IKICEIXC.    1111;  MI()i:.S  - 
OK    TRKE 


ON  I'OK.M. 


266 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


advance  in  the  number  of  operatives,  capital  investment,  cost  of 
materials  used,  and  value  of  product.  Our  shoe  manufacture  caters, 
however,  mainly  to  the  domestic  market ;  the  foreign  trade  in 
shoes  is  small.  This  is  due  in  part  to  the  export  of  American 
shoe-machinery,  so  that  foreigners  are  in  actuality  making 
American  shoes. 

Saddles  and  harness.     The  manufactures  of  saddlery  and  har- 
nesses, of  trunks  and  valises,  of  gloves  and  mittens,  are  important 

branches  of  the 
leather  industry. 
With  respect  to 
the  first,  it  may  be 
recalled  that  sad- 
dles were  in  much 
greater  demand 
than  harnesses  in 
the  early  history 
of  this  country ; 
good  roads  were 
few,  and  the  mails 
and  messengers 
used  the  saddle 
horse.  Later  there 
was  an  increasing  demand  for  harness.  The  earlier  forms  were 
for  heavy  stages  and  wagons,  and  the  lack  of  saddlery  and  harness 
hardware  was  a  severe  handicap  to  the  early  development  of  the 
industry.  Such  hardware  had  to  be  imported  from  England  and 
transportation  was  exasperatingly  slow.  Horse  collars  were  made  as 
early  as  1828,  and  harnesses  came  in  with  road  improvement.  The 
industry  has  continued  to  develop  until,  at  the  present  time,  sad- 
dlery and  harnesses  stand  for  an  annual  value  of  over  $50,000,000. 
Gloves.  Glove  and  mitten  manufacture  in  this  country  dates 
from  about  1760,  when  some  Scotch  glove-makers  settled  in 
New  York  State  and  provided  hand-coverings  for  farmers  and 
woodchoppers.     It  was  not  until   early  in  the  last  century  that 


DELIVERING   .MAIL   IX   OLR   EARLY    HISTURY 


LEATHER  AND   RUBBER 


267 


gloves  were  manufactured  for  more  than  local  consumption.  It 
is  reported  that  a  storekeeper  of  Johnstown,  New  York,  had  a 
lot  of  gloves  made  in  1809  and  took  them  on  horseback 
to  Albany,  where  he  found  an  easy  market.  He  then  secured 
the  services  in  glove-cutting  of  the  daughters  of  neighboring 
farmers,  and  the  gloves  were  made  up  by  the  farmers'  wives. 
This  seems  to  have  been  the  beginning  of  the  commercial  glove- 
making  business  in  this  country.  These  so-called  gloves  were 
really  mittens,  not 
gloves  ;  about  1825 
a  resident  of  Glo\- 
ersville.  New  York, 
took  a  load  of  real 
gloves  to  Boston 
and  disposed  of 
them  satisfactorily. 
Thus  the  impetus  of 
an  early  start  came 
to  Gloversville  and 
Johnstown,  and  they 
now  manufacture  to- 
gether nearly  half 
of  the  leather  gloves 
and  mittens  made  in 
the  United   States. 

Present  conditions  in  the  leather  trade.  The  present  prices  of 
leather  and  leather  goods  are  such  as  to  cause  concern  :  the 
domestic-animal  industry  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of 
population  in  most  countries,  and  the  situation  is  reflected  in  the 
rise  of  meat  and  leather ;  and  the  demand  caused  by  the  Great 
War  forced  prices  still  higher.  There  seems  to  be  no  likelihood 
of  a  speedy  return  to  former  conditions,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  American  ingenuity  will  speedily  devise  some  relief  for  the 
poor  and  even  the  moderately  well-to-do. 


THE   LAST  I'ROCESS   IN   THE   MANUFACTURE 
OF  GLOVES 


268  INDl'S'I'RV  y\NI)    trade 

RUHHKK 

A  tropical  product.  Rubber  is  a  vegetable  product  and  by  no 
means  a  modern  one.  Columbus  found  the  Indians  using  it,  and 
Spanish  soldiers  smeared  their  cloaks  with  the  gum  to  water 
proof  them.  French  investigators,  who  came  to  America  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  search  of  scientific 
information,  told  of  the  strange  forest  trees  whose  sap,  when 
properly  treated,  furnished  a  substance  as  flexible  as  leather  and 
as  impervious  to  water  as  metal.  The  natives  called  the  gum 
cahucJui,  from  which  comes  the  word  "caoutchouc";  but  the 
English  called  it  "  India  rubber."  An  account  of  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  gathered  does  not  belong  to  a  history  of  American 
industries,  but  is  described  in  a  book  entitled  "  Commercial  and 
Industrial  Geography,"  by  the  authors  of  the  present  book.  It 
is  enough  to  say  that  it  is  all  imported  in  raw  form  from  tropical 
countries ;  here  we  have  to  do  only  with  its  manufacture. 

Earlier  uses  of  rubber.  The  commodity  was  unknown  to 
science  until  1735,  and  as  late  as  1770  it  was  used  almost  solely 
to  make  "rubbers"  for  erasing  pencil  marks.  The  first  rubber 
ever  brought  to  this  country  is  said  to  have  been  imported  into 
Boston  in  1800,  the  year  of  the  birth  of  Charles  Goodyear.  But 
for  fifty  years  prior  to  1823  there  was  much  experimentation 
with  the  substance  and  many  records  of  dismal  failures,  for  the 
rubber  industry,  in  other  countries  as  well  as  in  this,  was  of 
little  significance  until  the  discovery  of  the  process  of  vulcaniza- 
tion. However,  in  1823  Mackintosh  made  a  fairly  useful  applica- 
tion of  it  by  starting  a  factory  in  Glasgow  for  the  waterproofing 
of  cloth  ;  his  products  were  good  for  a  while,  but  could  not 
stand  the  heat.  Over  here  the  attempt  was  made  to  imitate  the 
Mackintosh  process,  but  with  little  success  ;  the  stuff  got  too  hard 
in  cold  weather,  too  soft  in  warm,  and  dissolved  if  it  touched  oil 
or  grease  or  even  the  moisture  of  perspiration.  The  substance 
could  not  be  mastered,  and  finally  people  grew  impatient  with  it. 
Several  factories  failed,  and  it  looked  as  if  India  rubber  could 
be  used  only  for  imperfect  waterproofing  and  for  erasers. 


LEATHER  AND  RUBBER 


269 


The  Goodyear  invention.  This  was  the  situation  when  Good- 
year came  along  with  his  great  discovery,  in  1842,  of  vulcani- 
zation. "After  ten  years  of  patient  study  and  experimenting  he 
accidentally  spilled  a  combination  of  rubber  and  sulphur  on  a 
hot  stove,  and  quickly  discovered  that  the  heat  made  the  rub- 
ber dry  like  leather  and  that  thereafter  it  was  neither  melted  by 
the  heat  nor  cracked  by  the 
cold.  Many  other  processes 
have  been  developed  around 
the  Goodyear  process,  which 
consists  in  mixing  rubber 
and  sulphur  at  a  moderate 
heat  and  then  raising  it  to 
a  temperature  ranging  from 
about  250  to  300  degrees 
Fahrenheit."  ^  Goodyear  thus 
introduced  to  the  public  an 
elastic,  nonadhesive,  vulcan- 
ized India  rubber  which 
was  as  different  from  the 
pure  gum  rubber  as  gold  is 
from  brass.  Here  was  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  in- 
dustry, and  the  next  step  cylinders  for  rolling  out  sheets 
was    the   invention    of    hard  of  ruhhkr  for  soles 

rubber,  or  vulcanite. 

Rapid  growth  of  the  industry.  These  discoveries  revolutionized 
the  rubber  manufacture  in  the  United  States.  Companies  were 
formed  under  the  Goodyear  patents,  and  by  1850  over  ^3,000,000 
worth  of  rubber  goods  were  being  manufactured  in  this  country. 
Ten  years  later  the  few  large  factories  were  making  over 
$5,500,000  worth,  and  by  1870  sixty-five  plants  were  manu- 
facturing annually  rubber  goods  to  the  value  of  over  $14,000,000. 
These  factories  were  concentrated   in    New  York,   New  Jersey, 

'  Keller  and  Bishop,  Commercial  and  Industrial  (uoj^rapiiy,  p.  93. 


2/0 


INDUSTRY   AND  TRADE 


Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts.  At  present  there  are  about 
three  hundred  estabhshments,  turning  out  annually  a  product 
Valued  at  $300,000,000.  To  such  a  stature  has  an  industry  grown 
that  had  been  virtually  given  up  in  disgust ! 

The  demand  for  rubber.  The  Civil  War  lent  a  powerful 
impetus  to  the  rubber  industry,  especially  in  its  relation  to  cloth- 
ing, for  the  government  gave  out  large  contracts  for  rubber 
blankets,  and    rubber   boots  and    shoes  were   in   great   demand. 


HYDRAULIC   PRESS   FOR   MAKING    RUBBER    HEELS 


Soon  after  the  war  the  manufacture  of  mechanical  goods  was 
greatly  stimulated,  and  the  general  industrial  development  called 
for  ever-increasing  quantities  of  rubber  ;  railways  needed  packing, 
and  hose  was  in  demand  for  carrying  water,  steam,  and  gas. 
Expansion  of  the  factory  system  called  for  rubber  belting ;  the 
first  rubber  belt  was  made  in  1836,  but  it  was  not  until  after  the 
Civil  War  that  belting  of  this  sort  became  popular.  The  inven- 
tion of  the  pneumatic  tire,  shortly  before  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  together  with  the  marked  expansion  of  the  bicycle  and 
automobile  industries,  raised  the  demand  for  rubber  higher  than 
ever  before.  All  these  factors  and  also  the  development  of  the 
great    electrical    industries    of    the    country    combine    to  explain 


LEATHER  AND   RUBBER 


271 


the  tremendous  expansion  of  the  rubber  industry  within  the  last 
two  or  three  decades.  Hard  rubber,  or  vulcanite,  was  patented 
about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  combs  were  the  first 
articles  to  be  made  extensively  out  of  it ;  since  that  time  all  sorts 
of  products,  such  as  pipe  fittings,  buttons,  inkwells,  penholders, 
and  rulers,  have  been  fashioned  out  of  vulcanite. 

Rubber  footwear.  The  leading  branch  of  rubber  manufacturing 
in  this  country,  however,  from  the  very  beginning  down  to  the 
day  of  the  automobile,  was  the  making  of  rubber  boots  and  shoes. 


PACKING    KUF.liKKS    FOR    AIAKKET 


The  essentials  of  this  process  are  described  in  another  book  by 
the  present  authors.^  This  industry  was  of  comparatively  small 
importance  until  1880,  but  between  1890  and  1900  the  number 
of  factories  rose  from  eleven  to  twenty-two.  Massachusetts  leads 
in  rubber  footwear,  as  in  other  kinds.  It  is  to  be  noted  that 
recent  years  have  shown  a  small  increase  of  establishments,  but 
a  large  increase  of  product ;  this  means  heightened  efficiency 
of  the  old  factories. 

Automobile  tires.  The  main  branch  of  our  rubber-goods  indus- 
try at  the  present  day  is  the  manufacture  of  automobile  tires.  The 
quantity  of  rubber  consumed  in  this  line  alone  is  tremendous ; 
and  in  the  manufacture  of  our  rubber  products  —  tires,  footwear, 
mechanical  goods,  clothing,  druggists'  supplies,  and  hard  rubber  — 

'   Kellc-r  and  I'ishop.  Commercial  and  Induslrial  ( Icoj^raphy.  [jp.  (j.j-yy. 


272  TNDUS1M<V   AM)    IRADE 

we  consume  a  large  percentage  of  tlie  world's  output  of  cured 
rubber.  The  natural  rubber  trees  are  no  longer  depended  upon 
for  the  supply ;  rubber  plantations  on  a  large  scale  are  now 
adding  a  great  deal  to  it.  Chemists  have  made  synthetic  rubber, 
but  it  has  not  yet  come  into  serious  competition  with  the  vegetable 
variety.  Prices  of  rubber  and  rubber  goods  are  on  the  steady  and 
rapid  increase. 

Use  of  old  rubber.  Another  interesting  phase  of  the  rubber 
industry  is  the  reclaiming  of  old  waste  rubber.  There  are  col- 
lected annually  vast  quantities  of  old  rubber  in  the  form  of 
discarded  rubbers,  rubber  boots,  shoes,  belting,  hose,  and  other 
articles  made  either  in  whole  or  in  part  of  rubber.  This  waste  is 
reduced  to  powder  and  treated  in  various  ways,  after  which  it  is 
ready  to  be  sent  to  the  mills  for  manufacture  into  rubber  goods. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


CHEMICALS  AND  DYESTUFFS 


The  practical  value  of  chemistry.  Chemistry  has  come  to 
occupy  an  exceedingly  practical  place  in  modern  industry.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  from  the  time  he  learned  to  make  fire,  man  has 
always  practiced  the  chemical  arts ;  the  metallic  processes  are 
chemical  at  bottom,  and  so  are  those  of  agriculture.  But  these 
were  carried  on,  in  their  earliest  stages  at  least,  without  any 
understanding  of  their  nature  and  certainly  without  any  scientific 
insight  or  equipment. 

Elaboration  of  products.  It  remains  true,  however,  that  prod- 
ucts which  require  a  good  deal  of  working  on  them  seldom,  if 
ever,  reach  the  stage  for  final  consumption  without  having  been 
subjected  to  some  chemical  process.  This  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge,  although  it  is  sometimes  overlooked.  Ever)^  metal 
must  be  refined  ;  fibers  must  be  bleached,  purified,  and  dyed  ; 
leather,  rubber,  soap,  and  various  kinds  of  food  jjroducts  must 
be  preserved  ;  the  materials  of  buildings,  ships,  and  cars  must  be 
protected  from  the  weather  ;  articles  such  as  salt  and  sugar  must 
be  purified  ;  sand  and  clay  must  be  treated  before  they  can  be 
converted  into  various  manufactured  objects.  Ikit  none  of  these 
things  can  be  accomplished  by  mechanical  means  alone  ;  chemis- 
try is  called  on  to  participate  in  all  such  processes.  The  very 
earliest  conquests  of  man  over  nature  lay  in  the  development  of 
chemical  processes  of  a  simple  order — in  fact,  it  might  be  said 
that  the  fundamental   invention  of  all,   that    is,  fire-making,   was 

273 


274  INDUS  IRV   AND    TRADE 

a  chemical  one.  It  has  been  said  that  to  deprive  industry  of 
chemistry  would  be  like  removing  gravitation  from  the  universe. 
The  result  would  be  chaos. 

Sulphuric  acid.  The  manufacture  of  chemicals  in  this  country 
started  in  1793,  when  sulphuric  acid,  the  most  important  manu- 
factured substance  used  in  the  chemical  industry,  was  made  in 
Philadelphia  by  John  Harrison.    Harrison  made  lead  paint  also. 


WHEKK   SOME   SODIUM    PRODUCTS   ARE   MADE 

and  while  his  enterprise  was  very  small  in  its  beginnings,  it  proved 
profitable,  and  soon  his  plant  was  expanded  until  it  reached  a 
capacity  of  nearly  half  a  million  pounds  of  sulphuric  acid  annually. 
It  is  said  of  this  acid  that  it  is  a  chemical  barometer,  and  even 
that  one  can  gauge  the  civilization  of  a  people  by  the  amount  of 
sulphuric  acid  they  use.  In  1825  and  later  other  concerns  fol- 
lowed Harrison's  beginning  ;  it  is  said  that  the  Chemical  National 
Bank  in  New  York  was  established  with  funds  derived  largely 
from  the  manufacture  of  sulphuric  acid.  Various  other  acids  are 
produced  in  the  chemical  industry  :  nitric  acid  was  manufactured 


CHEMICALS  AND  DYESTUFFS  275 

in  Philadelphia  as  early  as  1834,  as  was  muriatic  acid  also;  then 
there  are  "  mixed  acids  "  formed  of  nitric  and  sulphuric,  which 
are  used  in  nitrating  organic  substances  such  as  glycerin  and 
cellulose.  Acetic,  lactic,  citric,  and  tartaric  acids  all  have  their 
importance  in  the  industrial  world,  as  well  as  in  medicine. 

Slow  expansion  of  the  industry.  1^'or  many  decades  after  our 
beginnings  the  chemical  industry  expanded  slowly,  for,  as  we 
have  several  times  remarked,  Americans  seem  to  be  cut  out  for 
mechanical  invention  of  a  practical  and  immediate  utility  rather 
than  for  that  which  requires  more  time  and  patience,  as,  for  in- 
stance, laboratory  experiment  and  study.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  the  most  necessary  chemical  materials  were  manu- 
factured in  different  Eastern  cities  on  a  small  scale  ;  lead  and 
zinc  paints,  various  dyes,  saleratus,  and  the  acids  were  made,  but 
the  industry  was  relatively  insignificant.  The  great  development 
has  been  a  matter  of  the  last  few  decades  ;  much  is  being  done 
now,  and  there  is  even  greater  promise,  for  our  relations  with 
Germany,  the  country  which  has  led  the  world  in  chemical  in- 
dustries, became  such  that  w^e  were  forced  to  turn  our  attention 
toward  independence  of  her  products,  especially  in  the  matter  of 
chemicals  and  dyestuffs. 

Sodium  products.  We  have  spoken  of  the  acids.  Another 
important  chemical,  with  extensive  uses,  is  sodium  bicarbonate, 
which  is  used  in  making  soap,  glass,  and  other  products.  The 
process  of  manufacture  goes  by  the  name  of  Solvay.  Common 
salt  furnishes  the  sodium  needed,  so  that  the  plants  are  often 
located  in  the  neighborhood  of  salt  deposits.  Sodium  bicarbonate 
occurs  also  in  certain  lakes  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  country, 
the  water  of  which,  strongly  charged  with  soda,  can  be  evaporated 
to  get  the  desired  product. 

Fertilizers.  The  production  of  artificial  fertilizer  is,  perhaps, 
following  the  preparation  of  sulphuric  acid,  the  next  most  im- 
portant branch  of  the  chemical  industries.  Among  the  essential 
plant  foods  are  phosph(jrus,  potassium,  and  nitrogen  ;  these  arc 
the  three  most  vital   foods,  because  thev  often   exist   in   the  soil 


2/6 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


in  quantities  too  small  for  the  needs  of  crops,  so  that  the  soil 
has  to  be  strengthened  by  artificial  means.  Phosphorus  is  that 
plant  food  whose  future  supply  involves  the  greatest  concern. 
It  is  found  in  large  quantities  in  various  forms,  such  as  in  bones 
of  animals,  both  recent  and  fossil.  Phosphate  rock  is  composed 
largely  of  such  fossil  remains  of  animal  life,  containing  the 
phosphorus    originally    concentrated    in    the    living    bone  ;    such 


LAliORATORY    FOR   THE   MAKING    OF    SODIUM    PRODUCTS 


deposits  are  mined  and  treated  chemically  to  produce  fertilizer. 
By  treating  phosphate  rock  with  sulphuric  acid,  what  is  called 
superphosphate  is  formed.  The  manufacture  of  artificial  fertili- 
zers in  this  country  is  recent,  dating  from  about  1850,  when 
some  experiments  were  made  in  Baltimore,  but  the  industry  has 
continued  to  develop  rapidly.  There  are  large  deposits  of  phos- 
phate rock  in  Tennessee,  Florida,  and  South  Carolina,  with 
probably  much  larger  quantities  of  low-grade  rock.  In  191 1  rock 
phosphate  was  discovered,  in  extensive  deposits,  in  three  differ- 
ent places  in  Montana.    And  we  have  found  several  other  sources 


CHEMICALS  AND  DYESTUFFS 


277 


of  phosphorus  ;  for  instance,  the  basic  process  of  iron  and  steel 
purification  yields  a  by-product  called  Thomas  slag,  or  basic  slag, 
which  is  used  quite  extensively  in  England  and  Germany. 

The  use  of  fertilizers.  Before  going  on  with  the  other  fertiliz- 
ing elements,  it  is  in  place  to  recall  what  has  been  said  before 
about  the  great  natural  resources  which  we  once  had  in  the  soil. 
There  were,  not  so  long  ago,  regions  in  the  Middle  West  which 
produced  large  yields  without  an  ounce  of  fertilizer.     It  was  only 


VALUAiiLK    I'llO.M'HAri'.    DKPOSITS    IN    KLORUJA 

with  the  threatened  exhaustion  of  the  soil  that  we  had  to  consider 
fertilizers  at  all,  and  this  accounts  for  their  late  development  here. 
The  earliest  form  of  fertilizing  was  the  natural  one  of  burning 
off  the  overgrowth  and  leaving  the  ashes ;  later  on  the  manure  of 
cattle  was  used,  and  so  were  fish  of  the  coarser  and  less  jxilatable 
varieties.  This  habit  of  using  fertilizer  is  one  which  people  have 
to  be  forced  to  acquire ;  and  for  many  ages  a  people  would 
abandon  its  lands  and  move  on  rather  than  go  to  the  trouble 
of  artificially  restoring  the  soil.  But  when  this  art  had  been  forced 
upon  them,  because  they  could  not  move  on  or  for  some  other 
rcas(jn,  they  then  began  to  study  the  characteristics  of  plants  and 


2/8  I\I)rSTR\'   WD    rRADF, 

of  soils  and  to  develop  a  science  where  formerly  there  had  been 
at  most  a  sort  of  chance  success.  In  this  country,  with  all  the 
exuberance  of  soil  and  other  favoring  resources,  we  were  naturally 
tardy  in  paying  attention  to  these  matters  ;  wc  went  ahead  and 
used  up  what  there  was,  and  only  when  the  pinch  began  to 
come  did  we  set  our  minds  to  the  conservation  of  our  resources. 


EVAPORATING   MUDDY    WATER   CON"TAI.\IX(;   POTASH    DEPOSITS 

Potash.  Next  to  phosphorus  the  element  of  great  significance 
among  fertilizing  agencies  is  potassium  (potash).  The  great 
reserves  of  potassium  deposits  were  long  supposed  to  be  con- 
fined to  Germany;  her  deposits  were  thought  extensive  enough 
to  meet  the  world's  demands  for  many  generations.  But  the 
Great  War  caused  the  rest  of  the  world  to  set  about  the  dis- 
covery of  other  deposits  or  other  sources  of  supply.  Extensive 
potash  deposits  have  been  found  in  the  western  part  of  our 
country,  and  they  can  be  utilized  commercially  ;  it  had  long  been 


CHEMICALS  AND   DYESTUFFS 


279 


known  that  we  had  deposits  in  a  number  of  locaUties,  but  their 
commercial  importance  was  supposed  to  be  sHght.  The  manu- 
facture of  potash  salts  in  the  United  States  started  in  191 5, 
when  a  product  worth  over  a  third  of  a  million  dollars  was  shown. 
It  seems  that  potassium  is  produced  in  some  cases  as  a  by-product 
from  the  manufacture  of  Portland  cement  in  California.  Potassium 
sulphate  was  made   in  Utah  and   Nebraska  and   placed  on  the 


A    WESTERN-    I'LANT   EOK    THE    MANUFACTURE    OF    I'OTASIl    I'RODUCTS 


market  in  191  5,  and  some  of  this  desirable  article  was  obtained 
from  kelp  cut  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Thus  it  seems  that  a  brand-new 
industry  has  been  born  among  us  ;  in  view  of  the  importance,  even 
the  indispensability,  of  potassium,  the  commercial  production  of 
potash  salts  is  a  matter  of  considerable  interest  to  the  country. 

Nitrogen.  Until  a  few  decades  ago  there  was  much  concern 
among  agricultural  scientists  as  to  the  future  supply  of  the  plant 
food  nitrogen.  There  are  unlimited  quantities  of  this  element  in 
the  atmosphere,  but  plants  cannot  feed  upon  this  free  nitrogen  ; 
it  must  first  be  converted  into  a  nitrate.    There  are  a  good  many 


2So  INDrSTRY  AND    TRADK 

sources  from  wliich  nitrogen  can  be  derived  for  the  manufacture 
of  fertilizer,  but  until  recently  the  supply  that  could  be  produced 
was  comparatively  small.  Waste  parts  of  animals,  dried  fish,  etc. 
were  the  source  of  nitrogen  fertilizer ;  so-called  fish  factories 
existed  along  bodies  of  water  such  as  Long  Island  Sound,  and 
suffered  more  or  less  from  legal  proceedings  instituted  by  shore- 
dwellers  who  objected  to  their  odor.  Then  there  are  extensive 
deposits  of  sodium  nitrate  in  Chile  and  farther  north  along 
the  west  coast  of  South  America ;  and  there  were  formerly  loca- 
tions where  guano  was  so  thickly  deposited  as  to  be  susceptible 
of  mining.  But  nitrates  are  now  manufactured  freely  as  a  result 
of  the  discovery  that  nitrogen  by  electrical  methods  can  be  com- 
bined with  other  substances  so  as  to  form  nitrates.  The  advance 
of  chemical  and  physical  science  has  thus  solved  *-he  nitrogen 
problem  so  far  as  agriculture  is  concerned. 

The  future  of  fertilizers.  The  increasing  demand  over  the 
world  for  foodstuffs  and  the  depletion  of  the  fertility  of  the  soil 
in  most  parts  of  the  world  by  unscientific  methods  of  farming  are 
combining  to  call  for  more  and  more  artificial  fertilizer.  It  may 
be  said  that  among  future  generations  the  demand  for  such  means 
of  keeping  up  the  fertility  of  the  soil  will  be  as  fundamental  a 
demand  as  that  for  coal  and  iron  ;  chemical  industries  productive 
of  fertilizers  are  likely,  therefore,  to  have  an  important  future. 

Other  chemical  industries.  There  are  a  number  of  chemical 
articles  produced  by  the  aid  of  electricity ;  in  general,  it  is  the 
consuming  heat  of  the  electric  furnace  which  permits  the  melting 
of  certain  substances,  for  instance,  calcium  carbide,  which  in  com- 
bination with  water  produces  acetylene  gas.  Other  branches  of 
the  chemical  industry  are  the  manufacture  of  oils  and  soaps,  the 
latter  being  produced  by  the  action  on  fats  of  some  chemical  like 
soda  or  potash.  Coal  tar  is  a  by-product  of  the  coal-gas  industry, 
and  under  distillation  yields  oil,  creosote,  benzol,  and  other  ele- 
ments, and,  especially,  the  coal-tar  dyes,  presently  to  be  further 
considered.  The  value  of  our  chemicals  and  allied  products  has 
considerably  more  than  doubled  since  1900. 


CHEMICALS  AND  DYESTUFFS 


281 


DVESTUFFS 

The  popularity  of  coloring.  Dyestuffs  have  interested  human 
beings  since  very  remote  times,  for  clothing  and  ornament  have 
been  colored  by  the  use  of  vegetable  and  animal  substances  by 
most  primitive  races.  Many  tribes,  to  realize  their  ideals  of 
beauty,  have  even  tattooed  the  skin  and  colored  the  teeth  and  hair. 
One  of  the  great  motives  in  the  development  of  trade  in  the 
Mediterranean  by  the  Phoenicians  was  the  value  set  upon  the 
color  purple,  as  seen  in  the  Biblical  expression  "  purple  and  fine 
linen  '"  ;  for,  since  the  color  was  derived  from  a  shellfish,  the 
Phoenicians  were   led  out  upon   the  sea,   and  then  farther  and 


l'I.A(:i.\(;    THE   SKEINS    IX    HACKS   To    UKV,    AMKK    I)\K1.\(. 


farther  on,  in  quest  of  supplies  of  material.  The  human  eye 
delights  in  color,  and  there  will  always  be  a  steady  demand  for 
color-giving  substances.  The  formerly  common  dyes  were  supposed 
to  exist  already  formed  in  the  plant  or  animal  and  so  came  to  be 
known  as  "  natural  "  dyestuffs  ;  among  the  more  important  of  these 
are  logwood,  fustic  (the  heartwood  of  certain  tropical  trees),  and 
indigo.  The  last  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  dyestuffs  ;  in  colonial  times 
in  America,  when  the  manufacture  of  textiles  was  a  household  art, 
thi-  indijro  tub  was  as  common  a  household  article  as  the  churn. 


282  INDl  STRV   AM)    IRADK 

Beginnings  of  our  dyestuffs  manufacture.  The  actual  manu 
tacturo  ol  chcstutl's  started  in  this  eounti)'  early  in  the  last  cen- 
tury ;  there  are  records  of  dyes  being  made  at  Poughkeepsie, 
New  York,  in  1816,  and  in  Philadelphia  in  1834.  At  the  present 
time  thev  are  made,  in  a  ver)'  large  proportion,  from  coal  tar 
and  so  are  a  by-product  of  the  coke  oven.  Coal-tar,  or  aniline, 
dyes  were  discovered  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  but 
there  are  now  in  existence  upwards  of  60,000  of  these  dyes. 
Among  other  things  artificial  indigo  is  now  made  from  coal  tar 
and  has  gone  far  to  replace  the  natural  dye.  Until  the  outbreak 
of  the  Great  War  the  bulk  of  the  coal-tar  industry  was  German, 
but  since  19 14  strenuous  efforts  have  been  made  by  various  coun- 
tries, including  ours,  to  develop  substantial  dye  industries  of  their 
own.  Up  to  recent  years  this  industry  has  been  always  relatively 
unimportant  in  our  country;  in  19 14  the  production  of  synthetic 
dyestuffs  amounted  to  something  over  3000  tons,  with  a  value 
of  S3, 000,000,  and  our  importation  of  coal-tar  dyestuffs  was  valued 
at  over  8900,000,000.  Our  domestic  production  consisted  largely 
in  the  assembling  into  finished  dyestuffs  of  semi-manufactured 
materials,  but  we  have  made  a  good  many  tons  of  aniline  dye 
from  benzol  of  domestic  origin,  this  manufacture  having  started 
in  1910. 

Effects  of  the  Great  War.  When  the  Great  War  broke  out  in 
1 9 14,  there  was  practically  a  cessation  of  coal-tar  "intermediates"; 
all  that  came  from  Germany,  constituting  about  86  per  cent  of 
our  foreign  supply,  was  cut  off  altogether.  But  many  American 
industries  are  dependent  upon  the  use  of  artificial  colors,  and  the 
situation  for  them  was  serious  in  the  extreme.  American  chemists 
and  capitalists  at  once  took  up  the  problem  of  relieving  the  im- 
pending stress  and  of  laying  the  foundation  for  an  independent 
American  coal-tar  industrv.  The  enterprise  was  a  difificult  one,  for 
the  industry  had  to  be  built  up  from  the  bottom,  but  within  three 
years  the  problem  was  solved.  Our  variety  of  colors  is  still  some- 
what limited,  for  a  wide  variety  and  perfection  of  quality  can  come 
only  after  a  great  deal  of  experience  and  experimentation.    The 


CHEMICALS  AND   DVESTUFFS  283 

German  dye  industry  was  the  result  of  long  years  of  chemical  re- 
search and  technical  training,  and  we  could  not  hope  to  duplicate 
its  performances  offhand.  The  situation  drove  us  back  once  more 
to  the  natural  dyestuffs,  use  of  which  relieved  the  first  acute  stages 
of  the  color  shortage  ;  and  we  have  also  developed  mineral  dyes, 
such  as  chrome  yellow. 

Home  production  of  dyes.  Information  as  to  the  remarkable 
expansion  of  our  dye  industry  since  the  summer  of  191 4  is 
not  yet  available  in  any  fullness;  it  is  known,  however,. that 
whereas  w^e  were  making  about  3300  short  tons  of  dyes  in 
19 1 4,  we  w-ere  making  more  than  15,000  in  19 16,  all  out  of 
American  coal  tar.  The  national  Bureau  of  Engraving  and  Print- 
ing, which  produces  all  our  paper  money  and  postage  stamps, 
managed  to  secure,  early  in  the  war,  several  shipments  of  dyes, 
which  were  used  most  sparingly  and  in  diluted  form  ;  certain  of 
the  postage  stamps  issued  for  a  time  thereafter  were  considerably 
paler  than  they  were  before  the  character  of  the  dye  was  changed. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  at  the  present  time  the  bulk  of  the  artificial 
dyes  consumed  in  our  industries  is  made  in  American  plants, 
by  American  labor,  from  our  own  raw  materials. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 


ELECTRICAL  MACHINERY  AND  APPARATUS 

A  new  set  of  industries.  This  set  of  industries  is  almost  too 
new  to  have  a  history,  and  there  is  about  it  so  much  of  tlie  tech- 
nical that  any  adequate  description  is  likely  to  be  far  from  simple. 
But  a  survey  of  typical  American  industries  that  left  this  group 
out  would  be  incomplete,  and  so  we  are  including  a  brief  chapter 
upon  it.  In  general,  this  group  includes  the  manufacture  of  the 
necessary  machinery  and  all  the  appliances  used  in  the  genera- 
tion, transmission,  and  utilization  of  electrical  energy,  but  it  does 
not  take  in  the  production  of  such  things  as  poles  {of  wood  or 
metal),  glass  or  porcelain,  or  bare  iron  or  copper  wire. 

Rapid  development.  This  electrical  industry  was  for  the  first 
time  reported  as  a  separate  one  in  the  Census  of  1879,  when  it 
supported  less  than  1300  employees  and  produced  an  annual 
product  worth  less  than  $3,000,000.  Then  came  the  growth 
period,  so  that  from  1879  to  19 14  the  number  of  establishments 
increased  from  76  to  1030,  the  number  of  employees  from  the 
above-quoted  figure  to  118,000,  the  capital  invested  from 
$1,500,000  to  over  $355,000,000,  and  the  annual  value  of  prod- 
uct to  over  S3 30,000,000.  Here  is  evidently  a  very  rapid 
advance  ;  and  while  this  business  cannot  compare  in  size  with 
some  others  which  we  have  described,  it  is  so  intimately  bound 
up  with  the  industrial  and  social  life  of  twentieth-century  Amer- 
ica, and  promises  so  much  for  the  future,  that  it  demands  some 
space  here. 

284 


ELECTRICAL  MACHINERY  AND  APPARATUS   285 

Advance  by  a  succession  of  rushes.  In  a  way  the  advance  of 
this  set  of  industries  has  been  by  a  succession  of  rushes  ;  concern- 
ing the  telephone  a  writer  in  the  Tenth  Census  says  that  statistics 
are  really  misleading  where  change  is  so  rapid  and  violent  —  that 
at  the  beginning  of  1 879-1 880  this  business  amounted  to  little 
or  nothing,  while  at  the  end  of  the  year  it  represented  one  of  the 
great  interests  of  the  country.  This  statement  is  taken  up  by  a 
writer  in  the  Twelfth  Census,  who  says  that  it  applies  all  along 
the  line  in  electrical  industries  and  applications  :  in  1850  con- 
cerning the  telegraph;  in  i860  concerning  the  beginnings  of 
dynamo  construction  ;  in  1870  concerning  the  stock-ticker  and 
simalar  electric  conveniences  now  familiar;  in  1880  concerning 
electric  lighting  as  well  as  the  telephone  ;  in  1 890  concerning  the 
vast  exploitation  of  the  electric  railway;  in  1900  concerning  the 
adoption  of  the  electric  motor  for  power  transmission  and  for 
factories,  as  well  as  for  the  automobile. 

Dynamos.  Dynamos  form  perhaps  the  most  important  single 
class  of  electrical  apparatus,  for  they  are  necessar}-  to  generate  the 
energy  which  other  electrical  machines  and  apparatus  distribute 
and  utilize.  These  machines  have  become  much  larger  and  more 
powerful  since  they  were  adopted,  in  connection  with  electric 
lighting,  in  1870;  and  since  1885  the  alternating  current  has 
been  employed.  In  1900  there  were  9182  direct-current  dynamos 
made  as  against  1345  using  the  alternating  current,  but  the  value 
of  the  former  was  only  about  $6,000,000,  as  against  $4,000,000 
for  the  latter.  The  average  size  of  the  latter  variety  was  254  horse 
power  ;  of  the  former,  47  horse  power.  The  direct-current  machine 
is  adapted  to  i.solated  plants,  the  alternating  to  comprehensive 
central  stations ;  again,  small-capacity  dynamos  are  adapted  to 
electroplating,  to  the  charging  of  batteries,  and  so  on.  In  general, 
with  the  great  increase  in  number  of  dynamos  since  1900,  it  is 
the  alternating-current  machines  that  have  shown  great  increase 
in  capacity  ;  the  other  kind  have  decreased.  Dynamos  of  direct 
current  and  small  size  have  come  into  demand  for  household  use 
and  especially  in  connection  with  the  automobile. 


286 


LNDUSIKV  AM)  TRADE 


Motors.  Electric  motors  have  been  known  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury, but  it  was  not  until  lately  that  they  assumed  any  importance 
in  the  industrial  world.    Since  1890  they  have  shown  a  marked 

development ;    the   cen- 


sus  figures  show  that  in 
1890  New  York  City 
was  using  360  motors 
in  isolated  plants — the 
horse  power  of  them  all 
amounting  to  only  310 
—  and  that  in  the  whole 
of  the  state  outside  New 
York  City  only  99  motors 
were  m  use.  1  he  rapid- 
ity of  development  since  that  time  has  been  so  great  that  the 
annual  value  of  motors  produced  now  is  about  $45,000,000. 
They  have  been  applied  to  the  operation  of  stationary  machinery, 
for  which  small  capacity  was  needed  ;  these  are  the  so-called 
"industrial  motors."  There  has  also  been 
a  striking  increase  in  the  production  of 
small  motors  for  operating  electric  fans  or 
blowers  ;  theaters,  factories,  and  hotels,  as 
well  as  dwelling  houses,  are  now  built  with 
much  greater  attention  to  ventilation  than 
formerly,  and  recourse  to  electricity  is  inevi- 
table. The  value  of  motors  manufactured 
for  automobiles  has  increased  from  less  than 
$200,000  in  1900  to  nearly  $1,500,000  at 
the  present  time. 

Storage  batteries.  To  go  into  the  con- 
struction of  devices  like  the  transformer  is 
impossible  here,  but  we  may  say  that  36,000  transformers  were 
being  made  annually  by  1900,  with  a  value  of  $3,000,000,  while 
at  present  these  figures  have  risen  to  115,000  and  813,000,000 
respectively.    Then  there  is  the  storage  battery.    As  early  as  1900 


LEAD-PLATE   STORAGE 
CELL 


ELECTRICAL  MACHINERY  AND  APPARATUS   287 


it  was  reported  by  the  census  that  we  had  $  1 1 ,000,000  invested 
in  storage  batteries  for  use  in  central  stations  for  Hght  and  power, 
for  street-raihvay  power  houses,  and  for  isolated  lighting  plants. 
Since  the  opening  of  the  century  the  value  of  batteries  produced 
annually  has  increased  from  less  than  $4,000,000 
to  nearly  $25,000,000,  and  in  the  first  fourteen 
years  of  the  century  the  number  of  dry  primary 
batteries  had  risen  from  less  than  2,000,000 
to  over  71,000,000  —  this  astonishing  increase 
being  explained  by  the  rapidly  growing  demand 
for  such  products  on  the  part  of  the  automobile 
and  the  power  boat.  During  the  same  period  the 
value  of  storage  batteries  increased  from  about 
$2,500,000  to  over  $13,000,000,  their  most 
extensive  use  being  in  central  lighting  plants 
and  in  the  electric-railway  industry. 

Electric  lighting.  The  manufacture  of  electric 
lamps  and  lighting  fixtures  is  an  important  branch 
of  the  electrical  industry.  In  the  arc  lamp  the 
current  forms  a  brilliant  arc  of  light  between  two  slightly  sepa- 
rated carbon  points,  while  in  the  incandescent  lamp  the  current 
heats  to  a  glow  a  nonconsuming  filament  sealed  in  a  vacuum  bulb. 
The  former  has  been  used  most  successfully  for  out-of-door 
illumination,  the  latter  for  ordinary  lighting, 
replacing  oil  lamps  and  gas.  The  incandescent 
lamp  is  everywhere  replacing  the  arc,  the  latter 
showing,  since  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, an  actual  decrease.  The  manufacture  of  incan- 
descent lamps  is  now  one  of  the  largest  speciali/ced 
departments  in  the  electrical  industry  ;  especially 
are  the  tungstens  on  the  increase,  as  a  consequence  of  improve- 
ments rendering  them  durable  and  economical.  From  1909  to  1914 
the  annual  production  of  tungstens  rose  from  less  than  12,000,000 
to  nearly  75,000,000,  while  the  incandescents  wilh  simple  tarbon 
filament  were  decreasing  from  55,000,000  to  14,000,000. 


THK    ARC    LK.llT 


line    I.\{  ANDKS- 
(  KNT    l.AMl' 


288 


ixnrsTRv  \\n  trade 


The  telephone.  Telephone  apparatus  is  manufactured  in  this 
country  to  the  value  of  523,000,000  annually,  a  figure  more  than 
twice  as  large  as  that  for  1900,  Formerly  there  was  a  very  much 
centralized  control  over  the  production  of  telephone  apparatus, 
resting  on  patents  surrounding  the  system  ;  but  with  the  lapse  of 
the  patents  a  great  deal  of  competition  sprang  up,  resulting  in 
further  development  for  the  telephone  industry  and  transformation 
in  the  character  of  the  apparatus.    Telephone  apparatus  proper 


TELEPllOXE    CENTRAL,    .SHOWING    SWITCHBOARD 


does  not  include  dynamos  and  motors,  but  such  articles  as  trans- 
mitters, receivers,  central  switchboards,  private-exchange  boards, 
and  telephone  parts  and  supplies. 

Electric  heating.  During  the  past  decade  there  has  been  a 
good  development  in  the  use  of  electric-heating  apparatus,  the 
value  of  such  manufactures  —  including  electric  irons,  cooking 
devices,  stoves,  and  ranges  —  having  risen  from  $400,000  in  1904 
to  over  $4,000,000  at  present. 

Development  of  electric  power.  Considerable  interest  is  being 
manifested  here  in  the  subject  of  electric-power  development, 
whereby  the  water  power  which  we  have  may  be  transformed  into 
electric  energy  and  carried  long  distances  to  points  of  demand. 


ELECTRICAL  MACHINERY  AND  APPARATUS   289 


The  conservation  movement  has  a  hand  in  this  matter,  for  it  has 
turned  attention  to  the  exhaustibihty  of  other  sources  of  power. 
It  is  estimated  that  our  potential  water  power  is  somewhere 
between  a  minimum  of 
20,000,000,  and  a  max- 
imum of  54,000,000, 
horse  power.  We  have 
seen  that  the  great 
bulk  of  the  country's 
water  power  is  located 
very  far  from  the  in- 
dustrial centers.  Power 
can  be  transmitted 
over  a  radius  of  sev- 
eral hundred  miles  and 
will,  no  doubt,  extend 
its  range  as  time  goes 
on  ;  but,  making  due 
allowance  for  the  prog- 
ress of  science,  it  would  appear  that  the  great  bulk  of  our  water 
power  is  not  within  striking  distance  of  our  great  industrial  centers. 
Location  of  the  industry.  Establishments  engaged  in  manufac- 
turing electrical  machinery,  apparatus,  and  supplies  are  to  be  found 
in  nearly  all  of  our  states,  but  the  industry  is  highly  developed 
and  centralized  in  the  following  six  :  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey,  Massachusetts,  Illinois,  and  Ohio. 


AN    ELECTRIC    URVING-OVEN 


PART  VI.    TRANSPORTATION 
CHAPTER  XXV 

BEGINNINGS   OF   THE   AMERICAN   TRANSPORTATION    SYSTEM 

Importance  of  the  distribution  of  products.  It  is  impossible  to 
overemphasize  the  importance  of  transportation  as  a  factor  in 
industrial  development  —  in  fact,  for  the  development  of  civiliza- 
tion in  general.  The  first  operation  in  economic  life  is  produc- 
tion, to  which,  in  its  various  forms,  we  have  given  considerable 
attention  in  the  foregoing  chapters.  But  the  reason  for  produc- 
tion is  that  products  may  be  consumed.  And  then  there  is  the 
connecting  link  between  production  and  consumption,  which  is 
distribution  ;  that  is,  moving  the  products  to  the  points  where 
they  are  wanted.  Distribution  and  its  problems  enter  imme- 
diately—  unless  the  case  is  one  of  a  Robinson  Crusoe  or  a  very 
small  and  isolated  group  of  people,  where  things  are  produced 
and  used  in  the  same  locality.  Even  in  such  a  small  group  there 
is  likely  to  be  some  distribution,  for  the  members  will  fall  natu- 
rally into  the  doing  of  that  for  which  each  has  a  special  bent ; 
that  is,  there  will  be  division  of  labor  whereby  one  member  pro- 
duces only  one  thing  and  another  another  thing.  Then  the  mem- 
bers will  trade  with  one  another,  and  this  represents  distribution. 

Trade  between  specializing  groups.  Hut  there  arc  plenty  of 
ca.ses  where  the  whole  of  a  small  group  or  tribe  will  specialize  in 
the  production  of  a  single  product,  say  arrow  poison,  and  another 

2<)\ 


292  INDUSTRY  AND    IRADK 

neighboring  tribe  will  make  hammocks.  The  former  makes  more 
arrow  poison  than  it  can  possibly  use,  and  the  latter  a  superfluity 
of  hammocks.  But  such  products  could  only  be  stored  up  in 
useless  amounts  unless  they  could  be  exchanged  and  distributed 
to  places  where  they  are  wanted.  Trade  is  bound  to  come  in  ; 
it  allows  specialization,  and  so  accumulation  of  skill,  as  well  as 
economy  of  time,  labor,  and  materials.  But  this  helps  along  the 
development  of  civilization,  and  the  exchange  of  ideas  that  follows 
upon  trade  relations  gives  further  momentum  to  that  development. 
No  single  isolated  man  or  small  group  of  men  ever  succeeded  in 
working  up  anything  deserving  the  name  of  civilization ;  it  takes 
numbers  and  the  contact  of  numbers  to  do  that.  Thus  distribu- 
tion of  product  is  essential  to  the  rise  of  an  economic  life  of  any 
import  and  to  the  development  of  general  civilization  itself. 

Need  of  transportation.  But  exchange  of  products,  even  on 
the  most  local  scale,  demands  that  these  products  be  carried  from 
one  place  to  another.  The  arrow  poison  and  the  hammocks  will 
not  go  of  themselves.  If  there  is  to  be  distribution  of  material 
products,  there  must  be  an  immediate  development  of  transporta- 
tion. Any  sort  of  developed  production  is  useless  without  dis- 
tribution of  the  product  by  way  of  transportation.  These  facts 
are  very  simple  and  obvious,  but  they  are  essential  —  and  it  is 
often  the  simple  and  obvious  that  we  are  likely  to  lose  sight  of. 
This  situation  might  be  less  simply  expressed  by  saying  that  even 
in  the  very  beginnings  of  the  industries,  as  well  as  throughout 
the  period  of  their  development,  the  extent  of  the  market  has 
always  been  a  limiting  factor  in  production. 

Development  of  transportation.  When  the  transportation  facili- 
ties were  slight  and  freight  rates  high  for  even  poor  and  slow 
deliveries,  large  districts  of  this  country  could  not  be  brought 
within  reach  of  the  outside  market  at  all.  In  this  day  of  cheap 
and  rapid  transfers,  by  water  and  by  rail,  we  are  likely  to  take 
for  granted  much  that  has  been  the  product  of  long  and  painful 
growth  and  to  forget  that  it  is  our  transportation  system  which 
has  enabled  us  to  assemble  upon  our  dining  table,  for  example, 


BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN  TRANSPORTATION     293 

the  products  of  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.  These  products 
have  to  be  brought  here,  and  then  the  countries  of  their  origin 
have  to  receive  another  set  of  products  to  pay  for  them.  No 
countr}^'s  wealth  can  be  utihzed  to  advantage  unless  there  are 
good  transportation  facilities.  Our  great  mineral  resources  would 
still  lie  undeveloped  and  all  but  unopened,  and  our  agricultural 
wealth  in  the  Central  West  would  still  remain  potential  rather 
than  actual,  were  it  not  for  the  development  of  transportation. 
The  presence  of  such  resources  has  stimulated  the  develop- 
ment of  transportation,  which  has  then  permitted  their  utilization  ; 
partial  utilization  has  then  made  desirable,  or  .even  necessary, 
a  fuller  utilization,  and  this  has  called  for  and  into  existence 
improved  transportation  ;  and  so  the  process  has  gone  on  rolling 
up  upon  itself. 

Early  American  transportation.  A  general  history  of  the  de- 
velopment of  transportation  would  contain  many  interesting  and 
diverting  episodes,  as  well  as  much  solid  and  valuable  informa- 
tion ;  but  in  this  place  we  are  confining  ourselves  to  America,  and 
shall  begin  with  a  brief  account  of  the  transportation  system,  if  it 
may  be  so  called,  of  the  Indians  who  inhabited  the  country  now 
known  as  the  United  States.  The  natives  of  Mexico  and  Peru, 
being  upon  a  much  higher  plane  of  civilization,  had  of  necessity 
developed  methods  that  were  far  ahead  of  those  of  the  northern 
tribes  ;  but  it  was  the  latter  that  the  colonists  met  with  and  that 
entered  as  a  factor  in  the  early  industrial  history  of  our  country. 

Indian  transportation.  As  the  Indians  had  never  advanced  very 
far  in  industrial  development,  so  they  had  made  but  small  progress 
in  trade  and  transportation.  Their  industrial  organization  was 
very  well  adapted  to  their  conditions  of  life,  and  it  called  for  little 
exchange.  Railways  and  canals  would  have  been  as  useless  to 
them  as  their  trails  and  water  vehicles  would  be  inadequate  to 
handle  the  great  volume  of  traffic  which  to-day  moves  back  and 
forth  across  the  continent.  Naturally  the  first  essential  to  trans- 
portation is  a  way  or  road,  and  the  first  and  most  obvious  road 
is  a  waterway  ;  it  is  already  cleared,  it  is  smooth,  and  on  it  friction, 


294 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


which  is  the  barrier  that  stands  in  the  way  of  the  movement 
of  bodies,  is  reduced  to  a  minimum.  And  the  vehicle  for  such 
a  road  is  a  boat  of  some  sort.  Most  of  what  deserves  the  name 
of  transportation  amon«^  the  Indians  was  water  transportation. 

Canoe  journeys.  The  waterways  were  abundant  and  conven- 
ient for  them  ;  lakes  and  rivers  existed  everywhere.  Long  jour- 
neys could    be   made   w^ith   only   an   occasional    portage.     Canoe 


I.IGHT-WEIGHT    INDIAN    CANOES 


navigation  was  possible  from  the  north  to  the  south  of  the  country 
by  way  of  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries,  and  a  trip  could  be 
made  across  from  east  to  west  by  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Great 
Lakes,  the  upper  Missouri,  the  Columbia,  and  their  tributaries.  Not 
that  the  Indians  often,  or  ever,  made  such  voyages,  but  the  inter- 
vening space  was  pretty  thoroughly  cut  up  by  streams  and  other 
bodies  of  water  navigable  to  boats  of  little  draft,  like  the  canoe. 
Types  of  canoe.  Now  the  canoe,  as  someone  has  said,  "was 
to  the  Indian  what  the  camel  or  horse  was  to  the  Arab."  The 
style  of  this  craft  differed  according  to  the  environment :  in  the 
northern  regions  the  rapids  and   portages  made   it  desirable  to 


BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN   TRANSPORTATION     295 

have  a  light  craft,  and  the  bark  of  the  birch  was  present  to  afford 
the  suitable  material ;  in  the  region  of  the  Gulf  and  Caribbean, 
on  the  contrary,  the  canoe  was  made  from  a  single  tree  trunk, 
hollowed  out  by  fire  and  the  stone  ax,  or  adz  —  the  so-called 
"  dugout,"  Larger  and  slower  boats  were  made  for  the  women 
and  children  and  the  baggage,  and  in  these  was  transported  what 
freight  there  was.     It  is  now  known  that  the  Indians  conveyed 


A   DUGOUT   CANOE    IN    THE    FLORIDA    EVERGLADES 
Courtesy  of  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York 

articles  of  exchange,  such  as  stone  and  pipe-clay,  across  consider- 
able stretches  of  country,  but  it  must  be  realized  that  such 
commodities  were  passed  on  from  hand  to  hand  and  that  there 
were  no  professional  peddlers  of  wares  who  covered  a  long  route. 
Whatever  trade  there  was,  was  within  a  rather  short  radius. 

The  trails.  The  Indian  used  also  land  routes,  or  trails.  These 
were  laid  out  with  reference  to  such  matters  as  the  location  of  ene- 
mies, of  hunting  grounds,  and,  later  on,  of  the  trading  posts  and 
forts  of  the  white  man.  The  historical  importance  of  these  trails 
consists  in  the  fact  that  they  became  the  roads  of  the  early  settlers 
and  later  developed  into  the  commercial  highways  of  a  succeeding 
age.     They  were  little  more  than  paths  ;  but  they  were  of  much 


?96 


INDUSTRY  AND    TRADE 


importance  to  carlv  explorers,  missionaries,  and  traders,  for  they 
were  laid  out,  doubtless  without  conscious  calculation,  on  the  lines 
of  least  resistance.  For  example,  the  trails  which  led  from  the  Atlan- 
tic seaboard  across  the  mountains  went  through  the  valley  of  the 
Mohawk,  to  the  north,  and  through  the  lower  passes,  farther  south. 
Railways  follow  the  trails.  The  routes  of  all  the  main  Indian 
trails  are  to-day  occupied  by  important  railway  lines  :  the  New 

York  Central,  the  Lake 
Shore,  the  Pennsylvania,  the 
Toledo  and  Ohio,  the  Hock- 
ing Valley,  the  Norfolk  and 
Western,  the  Cincinnati, 
Hamilton,  and  Dayton,  and 
other  railroad  lines  followed 
these  trails  because  they 
were  the  lines  of  least 
resistance  and  therefore  the 
lines  of  business  advantage. 
All  of  these  trails  had  special 
names  which  were  pretty 
well  known  some  decades 
ago  but  which  would  now 
convey  no  meaning  to  any- 
one not  a  local  resident  of 
the  district.  But  it  is  inter- 
esting and  significant  to 
realize  that  when  the  white  man  came  he  was  led  to  locate  his 
dirt  roads  and  railroads  along  the  Indian  trails  because  they  were 
the  natural  highways  of  the  country. 

Indian  land  transportation.  The  Indians  did  little  or  nothing 
to  improve  the  beds  of  their  trails  ;  few  or  no  bridges  were  built 
by  them,  for  the  need  of  these  came  with  the  introduction  of 
wheeled  vehicles,  which  were  unknown  to  the  natives.  The 
Indians,  indeed,  had  few  contrivances  to  assist  land  transportation, 
and  no  strong  beasts  of  burden  or  draft  at  all  —  unless  the  women 


THE   BURDEN   STRAP 


BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN  TRANSPORTATION    297 


might  be  regarded  as  such.    The  dog  was  used  to  some  extent. 

There  were  sledges  of  a  crude  order,  but  the  burdens  that  were 

borne  were  usually  for  the  back  and  were  partially  supported  and 

steadied  by  a  burden  strap  worn  over  the  forehead.    The  horse 

was  a  great  boon  to  the   Indian,  when  it  had  been  introduced 

from  the  Old  World,  and,  in  imitation  of  the  whites,  he  employed 

it  as  a  pack  animal.     The 

only  vehicle  invented  for  the 

horse  to  drag  was  the  so-called 

"  travois  "  ;  tent  poles  were 

lashed  on  either  side  of  the 

horse    and    trailed  on    the 

ground    behind,    the    ends 

bumping  and  scratching  over 

the  country,  and  upon  these 

was  strapped  the  baggage, 

often  with  the  women  and 

children  on  top  of  the  whole. 

Dogs  also  were  thus  loaded  ; 

the  sign  for  "dog"  in  the 

Indian   sign   language  was 

two  fingers  drawn  across  a 

surface. 

Colonial  transportation. 
The  early  settlements  clung 
closely  to  the  water,  being 

established  along  the  seacoast,  on  islands,  or  on  navigable  rivers  — 
the  Puritans  on  Massachusetts  13ay,  the  Dutch  on  Manhattan 
Island  and  along  the  Hudson,  the  '"  Colonies  on  Chesapeake  Bay," 
and  so  on.  Natural  watercourses  —  for  the  colonists  as  for  the 
Indians,  and  for  the  same  reasons  —  formed  the  ways  of  transpor- 
tation. And  as  the  interior  was  penetrated,  lines  of  least  resist- 
ance lay  up  the  streams  —  for  example,  the  Delaware  and  the 
Potomac.  If  a  settlement  was  made  away  from  these  natural 
means   of  communication   it   remained    isolated   and   had    to  be 


THE   TKAVOIS  —  A    MEANS    OF    INDIAN 
TRANSPORTATION 


29S  INhl  srK\    AM)    I  RADl'; 

scU-sutlkienl  in  high  degree.  However,  this  was  the  ehanuler 
of  tlie  frontier  settlement  in  any  case,  and  there  came  to  be 
many  small  groups  of  population,  access  to  which  was  by  foot 
along  the  Indian  trails.  To  such  places  no  bulky  goods  could 
well  be  carried,  and  the  cost  of  conveyance,  even  of  small  articles 
over  much  distance,  was  prohibitive.  After  a  while,  however,  when 
necessity  demanded  it  and  when  some  capital  had  been  accumu- 
lated, the  individual  landowners,  at  first,  and  then  the  local  and 
general  government  of  the  colony  in  question  undertook  to  cope 
with  the  problem  of  creating  a  better  system  of  transportation. 
Here  they  encountered  a  set  of  physiographical  conditions  which 
were  very  significant  to  them  and  which  cannot  be  disregarded 
even  at  the  present  day. 

Barriers  to  communication.  The  earliest  settlements  had  been 
made,  of  course,  on  the  seaboard,  and  they  were  necessarily 
more  or  less  isolated  from  one  another  because  of  the  practical 
absence  of  means  of  communication,  especially  by  land.  The  sea 
was  the  only  highway  of  the  time,  and  in  the  absence  of  coast 
surveys  and  adequate  lighthouses  this  was  not  available  on  all  occa- 
sions. And  when  these  earlier  settlements  began  to  expand  they 
were  obliged  to  spread  along  the  coast  rather  than  back  into  the 
interior.  This  w-as  on  account  of  the  Appalachian  mountain  wall 
in  the  rear,  which  formed  a  barrier  ver\'  difficult  to  pass.  A  few 
trails  led  into  the  back  country,  and  there  were  passes  through 
the  mountains,  but  even  after  small  settlements  had  been  estab- 
lished west  of  the  Alleghenies,  communication  with  the  coast  was 
infrequent  and  irregular. 

Transportation  and  the  settlement  of  the  West.  The  further 
development  of  the  settlements  west  of  the  mountains  was  really 
conditioned  on  the  development  of  transportation,  for  there  could 
be  no  very  great  advance  unless  the  frontier  kept  in  touch  with 
the  settlements  of  the  East,  and  especially  with  their  markets. 
But  from  1750  to  1800  their  isolation  was  scarcely  broken,  and 
they  lived  for  the  most  part  unto  themselves,  being  but  little 
regarded  by  the  more  populous  communities  of  the  coast.    The 


BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN  TRANSPORTATION     299 

early  history  of  railroad  transportation  consists  largely  of  accounts 
of  efforts,  originating  now  in  the  East  and  now  in  the  West,  to 
surmount  the  mountain  barrier  and  to  establish  regular  means  of 
communication  and  transportation  between  the  Ohio  and  Missis- 
sippi valleys  and  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 

Colonial  roads.  The  early  settlements  were  soon  obliged  to 
give  some  attention  to  local  roads.  Where  necessity  demanded, 
individual  landowners  would  work  by  themselves  or  would  cooper- 
ate in  connecting  up  adjoining  properties.  Then  there  were  pro- 
visions made  by  the  colonial  governments  for  road-making,  but 
it  may  be  said,  in  general,  that  these  resulted  in  but  few  roads. 
And  settlements  had  been  established  for  a  long  time  before 
there  was  enough  community  of  interest  to  prompt  adjoining 
colonies  to  cooperate  in  building  intercolonial  roads  ;  there  had 
first  to  be  formed  a  real  necessity  for  such.  There  was,  besides, 
an  insufficiency  of  capital  to  warrant  the  undertaking  of  extensive 
road-building  ;  and  racial  and  religious  differences,  as  well  as  dif- 
ferences in  the  forms  of  colonial  governments,  tended  to  keep 
people's  interests  divergent  and  so  to  retard  the  movement  to- 
ward establishment  of  communications.  Trade  is  a  solvent  of  this 
sort  of  mutual  indifference,  if  not  hostility  ;  but  trade  was  not 
yet  strong  enough  to  discharge  its  traditional  function  along 
these  lines. 

Insufficiency  of  the  roads.  As  late  as  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion there  was  not  a  good  road  of  any  considerable  length  in  any 
part  of  the  country,  nor  were  there  permanent  bridges  over  the 
large  streams.  Over  most  of  the  American  territory  no  improve- 
ment whatever  had  been  made  except  the  addition  of  the  horse. 
But  a  marked  improvement  in  availai)le  water  craft  was  secured 
by  the  use  of  ships,  and  a  few  sections  had  fair  roads.  The 
best  substitute  for  permanent  bridges,  at  points  of  greatest  im- 
portance, such  as  Philadelphia,  were  floating  bridges  sustained 
by  boats.  Land  travel,  as  we  have  seen,  was  almost  universally 
on  horseback.  The  last  century  was  well  advanced  before  travel- 
ing in  carriages  became  at  all  common,  ladies  as  well  as  gentlemen 


300  INDl  SlkV   AM)    I'KADI-; 

making  all  their  ordinary  journeys  on  horseback  or  in  heavy 
farm  wagons.  Some  leading  men  in  the  colonies  saw  the  need  of 
roads,  but  the\'  lacked  the  inHuence  to  make  their  views  heeded 
—  willingness  to  pay  taxes  for  a  public  utility  is  a  characteristic  of 
older  and  more  experienced  societies.  The  factors  which  held 
the  movement  back  are  said  to  have  been  the  general  ignorance 
of  the  period  as  to  the  best  methods  of  road  construction,  the 
indifference  or  hostility  of  many  shortsighted  landowners,  who 
would  not  give  up  any  of  their  land  for  roads,  and  the  scarcity 
of  labor  and  capital  actually  available  for  road  construction. 

Post  roads.  The  postal  service  must  not  be  overlooked  as 
an  influence  on  road-building.  Intercolonial  post  roads,  which  were 
in  reality  nothing  but  paths,  began  to  be  opened  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  mails,  of  course,  being  car- 
ried on  horseback.  Previous  to  the  opening  of  these  routes  mail 
was  sent  from  one  community  to  another  by  chance  travelers. 
Postal  communication  was  open  between  New  York  and  Boston 
about  1673,  the  rider  who  conveyed  the  mails  making  the  trip 
in  three  wrecks.  A  postmaster-general  for  the  colonies  was 
appointed  in  1692,  but  nothing  much  came  of  the  creation  of 
this  office  because  of  "the  dispersed  condition  of  the  inhabit- 
ants." By  1695  eight  trips  a  year  were  made  with  the  mails  be- 
tween the  Potomac  and  Philadelphia.  Soon  after  the  close  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  there  were  to  be  found  in  the  United  States 
only  seventy-five  post  offices,  and  the  post  roads  aggregated  less 
than  two  thousand  miles.  Between  New  York  and  Boston  mails 
were  being  conveyed  in  summer  three  times  a  week  and  in  winter 
twice,  the  trip  requiring,  on  the  average,  about  five  days.  Two 
days  were  necessary  to  make  the  distance,  one  way,  between  New 
York  and  Philadelphia,  and  five  mails  a  week  were  forwarded. 
In  some  parts  of  the  country  the  post  roads  were  still  only 
paths,  some,  in  fact,  being  no  more  than  improved  Indian  trails ; 
in  spite  of  efforts  to  improve  conditions  on  the  postal  routes  the 
roads  were  still  in  deplorable  condition  toward  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN  TRANSPORTATION    301 


Ferries  and  bridges.  With  the  real  opening  up  of  roads  it  was 
necessary  that  ferries  be  estabhshed  where  the  streams  could  not 
be  forded ;  and  bridges  succeeded  ferries  when  necessity  pressed 
hard  enough.  Private  parties  often  secured  a  grant  from  the 
colony  and  ran  ferries,  and  later  built  and  operated  bridges ;  or  a 
town  might  be  owner  and  operator.  As  early  as  1636  author- 
ity was  granted  for  a  ferry  at  Beverly,  Massachusetts,  which 
was  operated  by  the  town  of  Salem;  not  until  1787  was  there  a 
bridge  at  this  point.  Bridges  were  small  and  often  shaky  affairs 
and  spanned  only  the 
smaller  streams ;  not 
until  after  the  Revolu- 
tion was  bridge-build- 
ing taken  up  on  a  more 
ambitious  scale  and 
solid  wood  and  stone 
structures  erected. 

Sea  traffic.  The 
sea  trafific  of  colonial 
times  was  a  limited 
commerce  between  the 
colonies  and  was  carried  on  in  sloops,  schooners,  and  other 
small  vessels ;  the  vessels  for  transatlantic  trade  were  for  a  time 
almost  exclusively  foreign-built.  The  largest  ships  in  early  colo- 
nial times  seldom  exceeded  100  tons  or  so.  In  1769  the  colonies 
built  and  launched  389  vessels,  1 13  square-rigged,  and  276  sloops 
and  schooners,  aggregating  20,000  tons  burden.  Of  these  Massa- 
chusetts built  nearly  half,  with  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode  Island 
next,  while  New  York  had  only  5  square-rigged  ships  and  1 4  sloops 
and  schooners,  aggregating  in  all  955  tons.  Pennsylvania  owned 
1344  tons,  Virginia  1249,  North  and  South  Carolina  1396,  Con- 
necticut 1542,  while  Georgia  had  i  sloop  and  i  schooner  whose 
combined  measure  was  only  50  tons. 

Inland  water  transportation.    I'or  the  inland  waters  there  were 
smaller  craft,  such  as  skiffs,  rafts,  and  arks.    The  flatboat  came 


N 

n 

1 

L      V 

1 

1  h 

t^ 

Pl^ 

AN   EARLY   TRANSATLANTIC   STEAMSHIP 


302 


INDLSTKV   AND  TRADE 


into  use  on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi.  During  the  latter  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  nearly 
all  the  adventurous  men  of  the  West  near  the  Ohio  River  took 
part  in  flatboat  movements.  Many  got  their  start  in  life  by  build- 
ing a  flatboat,  loading  it  with  produce,  and  making  a  trip  to  New 
Orleans.  The  historic  case  of  this  sort  of  enterprise  is  that  of 
the  youthful  Abraham  Lincoln,  an  account  of  which  is  to  be 
found  in  anv  of  the  Lincoln  standard  biographies.    The  flatboats 


E.\RLV    STEA.MBOATS    0.\   THE    HUDSON 


and  some  of  the  other  river  craft  could  be  operated  only  down- 
stream, so  that  it  was  a  common  practice,  as  the  Lincoln  story 
shows,  to  build  these  boats  in  rather  flimsy  fashion  —  little  better 
than  rafts  —  and  sell  them  at  their  destination  for  what  the  lum- 
ber was  worth,  the  owner  and  crew  returning  home  on  foot  or  in 
some  roundabout  way.  The  incidents  of  raft  life  on  the  Missis- 
sippi are  touched  upon  in  graphic  style  by  Mark  Twain,  in  his 
"Tom  Sawyer"  and  "Huckleberry  Finn."  For  rafting  went  on, 
as  a  supplementary  form  of  transportation,  long  after  the  intro- 
duction of  the  steamboat. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN    I'RANSPORTATION     303 

The  coming  of  the  steamboat.  It  remained  for  the  first  quarter 
of  the  last  century  to  see  the  steamboat  in  practical  operation  upon 
our  rivers,  lakes,  and  tidewaters  ;  its  introduction  revolutionized 


A   MODERN   OCEAN   STEAMER 


the  system  of  water  transportation,  as  the  steam  locomotive  did 
the  land  transportation.  Old  methods  persisted  in  out-of-the- 
way  places,  but  the  application  of  steam  ends  the  first  period  of 
the  development  of  our  transportation  and  therefore  concludes 
this  chapter. 


CHAPTl^R   XX\'I 

TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS 

Growth  of  interest  in  road-building.  General  interest  in  im- 
proving land  transportation  seems  to  have  been  stimulated  soon 
after  the  Revolution  ;  numerous  schemes  were  then  devised  for 
building  turnpike  roads  and  bridges.  The  movement  was  origi- 
nated by  private  individuals,  but  later  on  the  state  governments 
fell  in  with  it.  The  private  individuals  were  interested  in  making 
money  from  tolls  to  be  charged  on  the  roads,  and  applied  to  the 
states  for  permission  to  construct  roads  and  bridges  to  connect 
the  most  densely  populated  districts  along  the  seaboard,  and  the 
interior  with  the  coast.  A  temporary  check  was  given  to  the  move- 
ment by  the  European  wars,  about  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
centur)\  which  opened  great  opportunities  for  American  shipping 
and  thus  diverted  capital  and  interest.  But  population  continued 
to  increase  and  to  move  westward,  so  that  a  demand  came  back 
to  the  East  for  better  connections,  and  the  movement  for  road- 
making  and  river  improvement  revived  strongly  at  the  opening 
of  the  last  century. 

Successful  turnpikes.  This  movement  was  stimulated  by  the 
success  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Lancaster  turnpike,  opened  in 
1794,  which  was  the  first  extensive  enterprise  of  the  sort  in  the 
country.  It  connected  the  Schuylkill  River  with  Lancaster,  sixty- 
two  miles  distant,  and  was  later  extended  to  the  Susquehanna 
River,  at  Columbia,  under  the  name  of  the  Lancaster  and  Susque- 
hanna Turnpike.    The  main  stockholders  of  such  turnpikes  were 

304 


TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS  305 

the  landowners  adjacent  to  the  road  and  the  merchants  who 
meant  to  use  it ;  and  the  state  government  determined  the 
amounts  of  the  tolls  that  were  to  be  charged. 

Road  companies  and  state  enterprises.  Throughout  the  first 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  building  of  roads  by  private 
companies  was  a  regular  mania  in  the  seaboard  states.  The  states 
themselves  took  a  hand  in  the  matter  and  voted  money  for  road- 
building,  set  aside  the  proceeds  of  land  sales,  and  even  permitted 
lotteries  to  raise  money  to  carry  on  the  work  —  especially  in  the 
case  of  connecting  up  the  frontier  settlements,  where  the  prospec- 
tive income  from  tolls  was  not  large  enough  to  tempt  private 
capital.  Before  1800  the  states  had  chartered  very  few  road 
companies,  but  by  1 8 1 1  charters  had  been  issued  wholesale  : 
26  in  Vermont ;  over  20  in  New  Hampshire  ;  upwards  of  50  in 
Connecticut ;  in  the  whole  of  New  England  about  180.  By  181 1 
New  York  had  chartered  137  companies  covering  a  distance  of 
4500  miles  ;  and  a  third  of  this  had  been  built.  New  Jersey  had 
30  companies  and  Pennsylvania  a  few  more.  This  was  the  begin- 
ning;  and  the  mania  continued  a  little  beyond  1825,  when  the 
enthusiasm  for  building  canals  took  its  place.  An  agitation  arose 
for  the  Federal  government  to  take  a  hand  in  this  matter  of 
internal  improvements,  of  which  more  will  be  said  presently. 

Road-building  not  profitable.  But  the  building  of  turnpikes  did 
not  prove  to  be  a  very  profitable  venture ;  the  tolls  charged, 
though  high  as  compared  with  present  freight  rates,  were  not 
enough  to  enable  the  companies  to  pay  large  dividends,  because 
the  bulk  of  the  earnings  had  to  be  expended  in  making  necessary 
repairs.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  many  of  the  stockholders  were 
the  landowners  and  the  merchants,  they  received  some  indirect 
return  outside  of  dividends  —  the  landowners  saw  the  land  adja- 
cent to  the  roads  increase  in  value,  and  the  merchants  reaped  the 
benefit  of  improved  facilities  for  transportation,  which  widened 
their  markets. 

Costs  of  transportation.  ( )n  the  whole,  however,  it  may  be  said 
that  the   roads   did    not   accom|)1ish    very  much   toward   reducing 


3o6 


INDISIKN    AM)    IRADK 


the  cost  of  transportation.  It  is  said  that,  taking  the  country  as 
a  whole,  transportation  of  merchandise  cost  $io  per  ton  per  hun- 
dred miles.  The  rate  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburgh,  when  the 
through  line  by  land  was  established,  was  about  Si 25  a  ton;  in 
1807  the  charge  between  New  York  and  Buffalo  was  $100  a  ton, 
and  twenty  days  were  required  for  the  transfer  ;  that  is,  the  New 
York-Buffalo  charge  was  three  times  the  market  value  of  wheat 


SCENE    ox    AX    EAKLV    A.MEKICAX    TL'RXPIKE 


and  six  times  that  of  corn.  These  figures  show,  by  contrast,  the 
immense  value  of  later  transportation  improvements.  Articles 
that  could  not  stand  such  rates  were  excluded  from  the  market. 
The  bad  state  of  the  roads  and  the  high  rate  of  tolls  accounted 
for  such  high  costs. 

Bridge  companies.  Turnpike-building  naturally  drew  with  it 
bridge-building.  In  a  great  many  cases  the  early  bridges  were 
built  by  corporations  and  were  toll  bridges  ;  some  of  them  still 
exist.  Bridge  companies,  like  road  companies,  had  their  hard 
times,  and  lotteries  were  occasionally  authorized  by  the  state  to 


TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS 


307 


raise  additional  funds.  In  the  Eastern  states,  notably  in  Massa- 
chusetts, bridges,  except  for  the  stone  piers  and  abutments,  were 
made  mostly  of  wood,  and  their  only  defect  was  lack  of  durability. 
Gallatin's  report.  During  the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury there  was  abundant  Federal  revenue,  and  a  movement  was 
started  to  use  this  treasury  surplus  to  build  roads  and  otherwise  to 
improve  transportation.  Albert  Gallatin,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
was  instructed  to  draw  up  a  report  showing  the  state  of  roads, 


AX   EAKLV    AMERICAN    TOLL    BRIDGE 


bridges,  and  waterways  and  to  present  a  plan  for  providing  the 
country  with  an  adequate  transportation  system.  I'^rom  this  report 
important  facts  can  be  gathered  as  to  the  conditions  of  making 
such  improvements.  The  roads  cost  between  $1000  and  $14,000 
a  mile.  Fifty  turnpike  companies  had  been  incorporated  in  Con- 
necticut alone  since  1803,  and  770  miles  had  been  built.  New 
York  showed  the  largest  capital  investment,  and  roads  extended 
in  every  direction,  but  mainly  from  settlements  on  the  North 
River  towards  the  Susquehanna  and  the  Great  Lakes  ;  the  road 
from  Albany  to  Schenectady  had  cost  at  the  rate  of  $10,000 
a  mile.  South  of  tlie  Potomac  there  were  few  artidcial  roads 
undertaken. 


30S  IXDISTRV   AM)    IKADK 

Other  public  works  advocated.  ']  his  report  of  Gallatin's  ex- 
pressed the  opinions  of  many  of  the  leading  men  of  the  country, 
and  its  recommendations,  had  they  been  followed  out,  would  have 
contributed  strongly  to  our  industrial  development.  Gallatin  was 
in  advance  of  his  time,  but  the  main  features  of  his  plan  deserve 
to  be  known  and  compared  with  what  actually  took  place  later 
on.  He  wanted  a  canal  from  Boston  to  North  Carolina  across 
the  principal  capes,  except  Cape  Fear ;  a  great  turnpike  from 
Maine  to  Georgia,  along  the  whole  extent  of  the  Atlantic  coast ; 
the  construction  of  four  artificial  roads  from  four  important  Western 
rivers  to  the  nearest  corresponding  coast  streams  ;  the  improve- 
ment of  the  navigability  of  these  coast  rivers  ;  a  canal  around  the 
falls  of  the  Ohio  ;  an  improvement  of  roads  to  St.  Louis,  Detroit, 
and  New  Orleans  ;  inland  navigation  between  the  North  River 
and  Lake  Champlain  and,  by  canal,  between  the  former  and  Lake 
Ontario  ;  a  canal  around  Niagara  Falls  ;  and  the  opening  of  navi- 
gation for  sloops  from  Lake  Ontario  to  the  extremities  of  Lake 
Michigan.  The  military,  commercial,  and  political  advantages  of 
these  works  were  all  emphasized,  and  they  were  to  cost,  with 
some  other  local  improvements,  about  $20,000,000.  The  scope 
and  daring  of  Gallatin's  vision  are  remarkable. 

The  Cumberland  Road.  But  this  report  came  to  Congress  at 
an  unfavorable  time,  shortly  after  the  Embargo  was  laid  and  when 
the  treasur)^  surplus  was  wasting  away.  The  nation's  attention  was 
directed  toward  other  things  than  internal  improvements,  and  the 
only  enterprise  of  any  magnitude  that  was  embarked  upon  was 
the  Cumberland  Road.  This  highway  connected  Fort  Cumberland 
on  the  Potomac  with  Wheeling  on  the  Ohio ;  it  was  commenced 
in  181 1  and  completed  in  18 18,  later  being  extended  as  far  as 
Springfield,  Ohio,  and  finished  to  that  point.  It  was  partly  com- 
pleted to  Vandalia,  Illinois,  and  surveys  were  made  as  far  as 
Jefferson  City,  Missouri.  This  road  responded  to  a  real  need  and 
became  one  of  the  great  highways  connecting  East  and  West.  It 
stimulated  the  trade  between  Baltimore  and  the  Western  country 
at  the  expense  of  Philadelphia. 


TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS 


309 


The  Wilderness  Road.  Another  important  road  leading  to  the 
West,  but  not  built  by  the  Federal  government,  was  the  Wilder- 
ness Road,  which  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  settlement  of 
the  West,  for  along  it  moved  a  stream  of  population,  by  way  of 
the  Cumberland  Gap,  into  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  The  original 
trail  was  laid  out  by  Daniel  Boone  in  1 774-1 775,  to  the  falls  of 
the  Ohio ;  it  developed  from  a  trail  to  an  immigrant  path,  then  to 


SCENE  ON  THE  NATIONAL  ROAD 


a  route  for  pack  horses,  and  at  length  to  a  wagon  road.  The  legis- 
lature of  Virginia  appropriated  money  for  improving  the  road,  and 
private  funds  also  were  raised,  yet  by  the  time  of  the  War  of 
18 1 2  it  was  still  in  very  primitive  condition.  We  have  said  that 
this  was  the  great  immigrant  road.  Of  the  75,000  inhabitants 
of  Kentucky  in  the  year  1790,  more  than  nine  tenths  were  said 
to  have  entered  by  way  of  the  Wilderness  Road.  In  1800  this 
population  had  increased  to  over  220,000,  and  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  increase  had,  again,  arrived  by  the  same  highway. 
"  It  was  this  moving  host,"  says  one  writer,  "that  gradually  wore 
a  spotted  trail  into  an  immigrant  trail,  a  pack-horse  route,  and 
a  wagon  road." 


310  LNDLSIRV   AM)    IKAiJK 

Modern  road-building.  \Vc  scarcely  need  to  go  into  the  matter 
of  nuKlcrn  load-building,  as  it  is  familiar  to  all,  except  to  empha- 
size the  influence  exerted  toward  betterment  of  roads  by  the 
increasing  use  of  the  automobile.  The  line  of  progress  has  been 
progressively  to  straighten  and  smooth  the  roadways,  and  the 
straightest  and  smoothest  is,  of  course,  that  road  which  consists 
of  ribbons  of  polished  steel  —  but  this  sort  of  road  we  reserve 
for  a  chapter  by  itself. 

Canals 

Rise  of  the  canal-building  craze.  General  Washington  was 
impressed  as  early  as  1772  with  the  necessity  of  building  canals 
and  improving  river  channels  ;  and  it  will  be  recalled  that  Gallatin 
recommended  not  a  few  canal  projects.  But  the  real  era  of  canal 
construction  was  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Canals  were  not  unknow'n  in  this  country  even  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  it  was  not  until  the  Erie  Canal  had  been  built  and 
finally  put  into  operation,  in  1825,  that  the  great  impetus  was 
given  to  the  projection  of  other  works. 

How  to  link  East  and  West.  The  westward  movement  of 
population  during  the  first  two  decades  of  the  last  century  was 
sufficiently  striking  to  catch  the  attention  of  everyone,  but  espe- 
cially of  those  far-seeing  men  who  were  looking  forward  to  the 
future  industrial  importance  of  the  West.  It  became  the  ambition 
of  leading  merchants,  notably  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Mary- 
land, and  Virginia,  to  secure  a  predominant  influence  over  Western 
trade.  But  nature  had  provided  only  one  outlet  to  tidewater  for 
the  products  of  this  region,  and  that  was  by  way  of  the  long  river- 
route  to  the  Gulf ;  for  not  much  attention  had  as  yet  been  drawn 
to  the  St.  LawTence  route.  The  Allegheny  Mountains  were  regarded 
as  a  most  formidable  barrier  to  travel  and  trade.  The  problem  and 
concern  was  how  to  link  the  West  with  the  East  by  an  adequate 
system  of  communication  and  transportation.  ; 

The  Erie  Canal.  Eor  a  time  roads  were  "considered  to  be  the 
only  practicable  means  to  this  end  ;  but  when  it  became  generally 


TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS 


311 


known  that  canals  were  a 
good  device  for  meeting 
commercial  needs,  and  that 
they  were  superior  to  any 
other  known  means  of 
transportation,  new  schemes 
were  brought  forward  from 
various  quarters  to  connect 
the  West  and  East  by 
canals.  Great  enthusiasm 
seized  upon  certain  dis- 
tricts; while  Pennsylvania, 
for  example,  was  talking 
about  the  matter.  New  York 
was  acting,  and  the  Erie 
Canal  was  the  result.  Its 
successful  completion,  in 
1 825,  and  its  operation  gave 
New  York  a  decided  ad- 
vantage in  the  Western 
trade.  New  York  had  a 
considerable  advantage  of 
position,  for  it  had  been 
unnecessary  to  pass  over 
the  mountains  in  reaching 
the  West,  nature  having 
provided  the  Mohawk  Gap  ; 
so  that  when  Pennsylvania 
later  built  her  competing 
route,  parti}'  b\-  rail  and 
partly  by  canal,  her  defeat 
was  inevitable,  for  there 
was  no  natural  depression 
in  lu-r  mountain  ranges, 
and    her    extra    costs    and 


312  INDISIKN'   AM)    IRADK 

other  dillicultics  formed  a  handicap  which  prevented  her  from 
meeting  the  competition  of  the  New  York  canal .^ 

Popularity  of  canals.  The  canal-building  mania  was  not,  how- 
ever, coniined  to  projects  for  connecting  the  West  with  the  East. 
It  w^as  confidently  believed  by  many  during  this  period  that 
canals  were  the  last  word  in  transportation  and  that  the  sooner 
the  country  was  copiously  supplied  with  them  the  better.  It  was 
also  the  conviction  that  they  were  going  to  be  high-dividend 
payers.  It  was  even  argued  in  some  of  the  states  that  the  receipts 
from  tolls  on  the  state  canals  would  go  far  toward  paying  the 
major  expenses  of  government  and  defraying  the  charges  for 
public  education.  Canals  were  thought  to  be  a  sort  of  wonderful 
discovery  leading  to  general  ease  of  life  and  felicity. 

The  canal  era.  It  was  the  states,  not  the  corporations,  that  em- 
barked in  most  of  the  enterprises  of  the  canal  era.  The  Erie 
Canal  was  built  by  the  state  of  New  York  and  operated  as  a 
public  work,  and  expense  w'as  not  spared  to  make  it  a  worthy 
one.  It  was  363  miles  in  length,  4  feet  deep,  and  had  a  width 
of  40  feet  at  the  top  and  28  at  the  bottom.  Pennsylvania  built  in 
all  over  900  miles  of  canal  between  1826  and  1842.  The  greatest 
amount  of  canal  mileage  at  any  time  in  our  history  was  4468, 
built  at  a  cost  of  $214,000,000,  mostly  by  state  governments. 
Nearly  all  the  canals  were  financial  failures,  and,  built  as  they 
were  in  the  years  of  financial  stringency  following  the  panic  of 
1837,  some  of  them  brought  their  states  to  the  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy. It  was  the  coming  of  the  railroads,  about  the  middle  of 
the  century,  that  caused  the  abandonment  of  many  canals.  Some 
canals  were  bought  up  by  the  railroads  and  operated  for  a  time  ; 
a  few,  like  the  Erie,  have  continued  to  exist,  and  some  of  them 
perform  an  important  local,  or  even  more  than  local,  function 
clear  up  to  the  present  day.  Aside  from  the  competition  of  the 
railroad,  there  w-ere  several  causes  for  the  failure  of  the  canals  : 
freshets,  especially  in  the  spring,  rolled  up  extraordinary  expendi- 
tures for  repairs  ;  they  could  be  operated  only  during  the  open 
seasons,    being    frozen    up    in    winter ;    many   were    built    as   a 


TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS  313 

consequence  of  log-rolling  of  one  sort  or  another,  had  never  been 
needed,  and  were  doomed  from  the  outset.  It  has  been  said  that 
there  was  a  much  larger  percentage  of  absolute  failures,  together 
with  a  much  smaller  percentage  of  decided  successes,  in  canals 
than  in  any  other  important  class  of  An^erican  public  works 
designed  to  promote  the  movement  of  passengers  and  freight. 

Services  and  improvement  of  the  Erie  Canal.  The  Erie  Canal,*^ 
connecting  the  Great  Lakes  with  the  ocean  by  way  of  the  Hud- 
son River,  was,  on  the  whole,  the  supreme  effort  in  our  canal- 
building  ;  it  has  been,  in  fact,  the  most  important  canal  this 
country  has  ever  constructed,  unless  the  Panama  Canal  be  ex- 
cepted. It  contributed  a  large  share  towards  making  New  York 
the  metropolis  of  the  Union.  For  a  long  time  it  was  able  to  with- 
stand the  competition  of  the  railways ;  up  to  1 866  the  canal  traffic 
comprised  about  60  per  cent  of  the  freight  movement  across  the 
state  of  New  York.  A  marked  shrinkage  in  business  followed 
between  1866  and  1895.  During  all  this  time  the  railway  traffic 
greatly  increased,  for  the  railways  were  kept  up-to-date  and  the 
canal  was  not ;  neither  the  size  of  the  channel  nor  that  of  the 
locks  was  increased  after  1862.  A  plan  for  enlarging  and  rebuild- 
ing the  Erie  Canal  was  adopted  by  the  state  of  New  York  in 
1903  and  completed  in  19 18.  It  is  to  be  kept  as  a  first-class 
waterway  and  used  by  steam-towed  barges  with  a  capacity  several 
times  that  of  the  boats  formerly  used  and  with  a  speed  greatly 
increased  over  that  of  the  latter.    .^ 

The  Panama  Canal.  The  Panama  Canal  is  not  within  the 
United  States  jjroper,  but  it  should  receive  mention  liere.  The 
idea  in  building  it  was,  of  course,  to  connect  the  two  oceans  and 
to  obviate  the  long  voyage  around  Cape  Morn,  just  as  the  Suez 
Canal  obviated  the  necessity  of  doubling  the  Cape  of  (iood  Mope. 
The  thought  of  piercing  this  isthmus  had  been  in  men's  minds 
for  over  a  century,  and  the  French  had  already  spent  millions 
upon  the  project  before  it  was  undertaken  by  us,  A  strijD  of  ter- 
ritory ten  miles  wide,  known  as  the  Canal  Zone,  was  j^urchased 
by  the  United  States  from  the  republic  of  Panama,  and  a  canal 


3U 


INDl  SIK\    AM)    TRADE 


of  the  lock  type,  with  a  summit  eighty-five  feet  above  sea  level, 
has  been  constructed.  This  has  been  a  great  engineering  under- 
taking, and  the  world  will  watch  with  interest  to  see  whether  it 
justifies  all  the  expectations  of  an  economic  and  political  order 
which  its  advocates  prophesied. 

The  improvement  of  natural  waterways.  The  increasing  vol- 
ume of  traflfic  on  our  railways  —  rpore  than  they  seem  able  to 
take  care  of  —  has  turned  attention  recently  to  the  question  of 


.\llKAFL(JKh^  LUCKS  l.N  iHK  PANAMA  CANAL 

improving  our  natural  waterways  to  supplement  the  railways.  This 
is,  in  a  sense,  a  return  to  an  older  system  of  transportation  which 
the  railways  had  almost  driven  out.  Some  people  think  the  time 
may  soon  come  when  we  shall  regret  that  the  canals  have  been 
so  generally  closed  up.  Parties  in  the  Central  West  and  others 
have  been  urging  Congress  to  connect  the  Great  Lakes  with  the 
Mississippi  by  a  canal  of  large  dimensions,  some  advocating  a 
fourteen-foot  waterway  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  utilizing, 
of  course,  the  Mississippi  and  other  streams  —  the  fourteen  feet 
to  be  a  minimum  at  any  point. 


TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS 


315 


What  the  waterways  can  do.  It  seems  fair  to  say,  in  regard  to 
such  projects,  that  we  cannot  expect  ahvays  to  have  only  the  best 
and  swiftest  means  of  transportation.  We  have  got  to  the  point 
where  our  hfe  is  a  continuous  rush  and  have  somewhat  lost  the 
sense  of  proportion  ;  we  insist  on  speed  at  every  point,  impatiently 
expecting  to  receive  heavy,  imperishable  freight  about  as  quickly 


A    15ATTLESH1P    PASSI.NCi    TllKOLK.ll    THE    PANAMA   CANAL 

as  other  kinds,  discarding  the  sailing  vessel  in  favor  of  the  steamer 
at  almost  every  point.  But  all  this  speed  costs  that  which  cannot 
be  replaced  ;  the  coal  the  steamer  burns  is  here  and  is  gone,  while 
the  breezes  that  carry  the  sailing  vessel  are  here,  in  undiminished 
force,  as  they  were  when  men  first  began  to  sail.  It  is  coming  to 
be  seen  that  a  careful  distinction  between  kinds  of  freight  — 
whereby  some  of  it  can  be  transferred  rather  slowly  by  water, 
while  the  railroads  are  freed  to  rush  to  its  destination  tlial  sort 
of  freight  which  cannot  wait  and  mucli  of  which  is  now  damaged 


3l6  IXDrS'I'RV   AND    I'RADK 

h\  IxMHi;'  held  uj)  on  account  of  congestion  will  rc[)resent  an 
economy  and  conservation  of  resources  to  which  we  have  hitherto 
been  comparative  strangers,  but  to  which  we  must  sometime 
come.  It  is  a  question  of  utilizing  all  varieties  of  resources 
in  their  degree,  rather  than  of  employing  only  one  because  it  is 
the  best. 

Retirement  of  the  states  from  building  state  works.  The  crisis 
of  1837  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  state  works  along  the 
line  of  transportation  improvements  ;  it  had  come  to  be  realized 
that  many  of  the  enterprises  were  premature,  and  that  on  some  of 
them  the  state  money  had  been  recklessly  squandered.  With  the 
coming  of  the  railroad  a  movement  rose  in  the  various  states  for 
selling  the  canals,  and  for  the  entire  withdrawal  of  the  state  gov- 
ernments from  the  building  and  operation  of  internal  improve- 
ments. The  field  was  thus  left  clear  for  the  railway  to  develop 
as  the  enterprise  of  private  individuals  and  corporations. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


RAILROADS 


The  canal  era  and  the  railroad  era.  A  few  thousand  miles  of 
railway  were  built  before  1850,  and  almost  no  new  canal  enter- 
prises were  undertaken  after  that  date.  The  railway  succeeds  the 
canal,  but  for  a  time  the  two  overlap  ;  there  is  no  point  of  time 
when  it  can  be  said  :  Here  the  canal  ends  and  the  railway  begins. 
There  are  no  such  theatrical  changes  in  human  affairs- — no  sharp 
lines  of  distinction,  but  rather  zones  of  transition,  when  the  old 
is  not  yet  gone  and  the  new  is  not  yet  here. 

Beginnings  of  the  railway.  Being  younger  and  industrially 
less  developed,  this  country  was  much  behind  the  mother  country 
in  railroad  construction.  In  England  crude  attempts  to  use  rails 
for  purposes  of  transportation  had  been  made  before  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  F'or  a  long  time  the  vehicles  used 
were  ordinary  road  wagons,  and  the  power  employed  was  varied, 
including  horses,  gravity,  and  wind  acting  upon  sails.  After  the 
invention  of  Watt's  steam  engine,  in  1769,  it  was  suggested  that 
steam  power  could  be  used  for  propulsion  ;  the  stationary  engine 
was  first  tried,  and  then  the  locomotive.  The  superiority  of  the 
latter  was  demonstrated  in  1H29,  when  George  Stephenson's 
"  Rocket  "  won  a  prize  of  ^{^500  offered  by  the  Liverpool  and 
Manchester  Railway  for  a  locomotive  engine  of  a  speed  not  less 
than  ten  miles  an  hour  ;  the  "  Rocket,"  though  weighing  only  four 
and  one-fourth  tons,  made  twenty-nine  and  a  half  miles  an  hour 
on  a  level  track  with  a  load  of  twelve  and  three-fourths  tons. 

3 '7 


3'>^ 


IXDl'STRV   AN[)    TRAI^E 


Beginnings  in  America.  In  this  country  tramways  operated  by 
animal  power,  gravity,  or  stationary  engines  were  employed  before 
railroads,  as  the  term  is  now  understood,  were  known.    Sails  were 

used  here  also.  The 
pioneer  railroad  in  this 
country  is  generally  con- 
ceded to  have  been  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  ;  it 
was,  at  any  rate,  the  first 
road  in  the  nature  of  a 
public  utility.  Its  first  rail 
was  laid  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  1828,  by  Charles 
Carroll,  reputed  to  be 
the  only  living  signer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  in  1830  the  first  division  of  the  line  was  open  for 
general  transportation  purposes.    This  was  at  first  a  horse-car  road, 


LOCOMOTIVE  BUILT  BY  GEORGE  STEPHENSON 


AX   OLD-TIME   STAGECOACH    OX    RAILS 


but  locomotives  soon  took  the  place  of  the  animals  ;  the  cars  were 
at  first  small  and  open,  like  stagecoaches,  but  later  on  were  larger 
and  mounted  on  trucks.    Of  course  the  whole  apparatus  was  on  a 


RAILROADS 


319 


scale  that  appears  to  us  now  as  ridiculously  minute  ;  the  roadbed 
was  poor,  and  the  rails  were  hardly  more  than  strips  of  metal. 
But  it  was  gradually  borne  in  upon  people's  minds  that  it  was  not 
the  canal  but  the  railroad  that  was  to  be  the  last  word  in  the 
evolution  of  transportation. 

The  earlier  lines.    Numerous  railroad  lines  were  begun  shortly 
after  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio.    The   New  York  Central  system 
originated  in  the   Mohawk 
and  Hudson,  which  opened, 
in  1 83 1,  seventeen  miles  of 
road   between  Albany   and 
Schenectady.    A  little  later 
Boston  was  connected  with 
Providence,      Lowell,     and 
Worcester,    and    in    1841, 
by  way  of  Worcester,  with 
Albany.  The  following  year 
saw  a  Boston-to-Buffalo  con- 
nection.   The  germ  of  the 
Pennsylvania  system,  from 
Philadelphia    to    Columbia, 
was  put  into    operation  in 
1834;  and  by  1837  Phila- 
delphia was  connected  with 
New  York  Bay  and  Balti- 
more.   In  1838  the  Reading 
railroad  was  in  operation  up  the  Schuylkill  valley.   The  first  railroad 
in  the  South  was  a  South  Carolina  line  running  from  Charleston 
to  Hamburg,  a  settlement  opposite  Augusta  on  the  Savannah  River  ; 
this  road  was  opened  in  1837,  was  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
miles  in  length,  and  enjoyed  for  a  brief  time  the  distinction  of 
being  the  longest  railroad  in  the  world. 

The  first  lines  were  local.  The  earlier  railways  were  not 
designed  to  be  arteries  connecting  West  and  East  ;  with  few 
exceptions   comprehensive   schemes   did    not   underlie    the    early 


CHARLES   CARROLL 


7,20  INl)lsrR\    WD    I'RADE 

railroad  enterprises  ;  most  of  the  lines  were  local  and,  being  of 
different  gauges,  were  not  available  for  long  shipments.  When  the 
idea  developed  of  linking  up  the  short  separate  lines  into  systems, 
it  was  found  that  there  were  many  different  companies  operating 
the  roads,  each  in  its  own  way;  nothing  was  uniform.  In  1850 
there  were  seven  different  companies  operating  lines  connecting 
Albany  and    Buffalo.    This  matter  of  a  non-uniform  gauge  was 


"JOHN    hull"    locomotive  —  AN   EARLY    AMERICAN   LOCOMOTIVE 

always  a  great  nuisance ;  there  was  even  developed  a  sort  of 
telescopic  axle  permitting  the  adjustment  of  the  wheels  to  tracks 
of  different  gauge. 

Engineering  difficulties.  In  the  laying  out  of  the  early  rail- 
roads the  engineer  had  to  keep  in  mind  constantly  the  necessity 
of  low  initial  cost  of  construction.  Hence  the  first  American  rail- 
roads showed  sharp  curves,  steep  grades,  and  irregular  courses. 
It  was  easier  to  follow  the  old  road  or  trail  than  to  strike  out  on  a 
new  one  ;  but  the  early  highway  was,  as  we  have  seen,  often  based 
on  an  Indian  trail,  or  even,  as  in  the  Middle  West,  on  a  buffalo 
trail,  neither  of  which  was  noted  for  its  directness.  And  where  the 
old  dirt  roads  had  been  diverted  from  these  more  or  less  hap- 
hazard lines,  it  was  less  for  the  purpose  of  straightening  the 
course  than  of  meeting  the  wishes  of  some  person  or  community 
which  had  foresight  enough  to  want  the  road  and  influence 
enough  to  get  it  deflected  in  that  direction.    This  sort  of  course 


RAILROADS 


321 


introduced  engineering  difficulties  that  were  elsewhere  —  for  in- 
stance, in  England  —  unknown.  The  resources  of  American 
mechanics  were  taxed  to  the  limit,  and  all  sorts  of  devices  were 
adopted  to  make  the  engine  stick  to  the  track  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
however,  many  permanent  improvements  were  made,  such  as  the 
swivel,  or  bogie,  truck,  which  permits  of  sharp  turns. 

The  early  locomotive.  The  early  locomotives  were  not  very 
strong ;  for  example,  it  is  said  that  on  the  Mohawk  and  Hudson 
the  engines  had  to  be  taken 
off  in  winter  and  horses  used 
in  their  stead,  and  in  some 
cases  it  is  recorded  that  pas- 
sengers often  had  to  get  out 
and  help  start  the  train  by 
pushing.  The  locomotives 
were  practically  all  wood- 
burners,  as  they  were  intro- 
duced prior  to  the  coal  age. 
Stories  are  told  of  the  stop- 
ping of  a  train  to  allow  the 
fireman    to    cut    wood,    the 

engineer  and  well-posted  passengers  getting  out  their  fishing 
tackle  and  enjoying  themselves  the  while.  The  smokestacks  had 
to  be  high,  and  at  man\-  of  the  overhead  bridges  they  had  to  be 
taken  down  ;  and  so  it  became  a  custom  for  a  watchman  to  exam- 
ine bridges  after  a  train  had  passed,  carrying  with  him  a  bucket 
of  water  in  case  the  engine  had  set  fire  to  the  bridge.  And  the 
roadbeds  were  too  flimsy  to  support  a  locomotive  and  train  of 
much  size  ;  it  was  thought  that  heavy  locomotives  would  destroy 
the  bed,  and  their  size  was  kept  down.  It  is  not  so  surprising 
that  the  popular  mind  came  but  slowly  to  an  appreciation  of  the 
nature  and  possibilities  of  the  railroads.  Apparently  the  railroad 
impressed  the  early  legislator  as  a  sort  of  improved  common  road, 
to  be  ranked  with  the  macadamized  turnpike  ;  at  any  rate,  the  first 
railroad  charters  were  patterned  dirceth'  upon  turnpike  charters. 


ii^^^>^^^ 


^jmmmmm^.:. 


AN  EARLY  AMERICAN  ].()((),M()TI\'K  SHOW- 
ING    SMOKESTACK  ;      WHEN     WOOD     WAS 
USED   FOR   FUEL 


322  INOrSTRV   AND  TRADE 

Retardation  of  development,  rhere  was  much  opposition  to  the 
building  of  the  first  railroads  on  the  part  of  rival  transportation 
agencies,  such  as  turnpike  and  canal  companies  and  owners  of 
stage  lines.  Tavern  keepers  were  against  the  innovation  because 
thev  thought  they  would  lose  business  built  up  in  connection  with 
horseback  and  stage  travel.  But  the  growing  cities  were  reaching 
out  for  the  trade  of  adjacent  country  districts,  the  rapidly  develop- 
ing West  was  calling,  and  railroad  construction  proceeded,  all  things 
considered  and  despite  difficulties,  at  a  good  speed.  To  realize 
this  we  must  remember  that  there  was  a  day  of  small  things 
even  in  the  powerful  industry  which  we  now  accept  as  a  matter  of 
course.  During  the  first  decade  of  railroad-building  only  2800 
miles  had  been  put  into  use  ;  ten  years  later,  in  1850,  there  were 
about  9000  miles.  And  during  this  time  the  railroads  had  to 
demonstrate  their  superiority  over  canals  ;  people  were  slow  to 
realize  their  possibilities ;  capital  was  scarce ;  and  it  was  not 
known  for  some  time  whether  or  not  the  railroads  could  compete 
successfully  with  the  waterways  in  the  carrying  of  freight.  Not 
until  the  middle  of  the  century  was  it  apparent  that  our  railways 
were  destined  to  carry  heavy  freight  as  well  as  passengers 
and  packages. 

No  railway  systems.  All  these  facts  made  for  retardation  of 
development,  and  up  to  1850  our  railways  occupied  an  unimpor- 
tant relation  to  the  country's  internal  commerce.  There  was  as 
yet  no  idea  of  a  railway  system  ;  the  lines  were  local  and  isolated. 
Philadelphia,  as  the  converging  point  of  a  numbe.r  of  lines,  was  at 
first  the  most  important  railway  center ;  New  York  made  connec- 
tion with  the  West  by  the  Erie  Canal,  which  had  a  big  traffic 
both  in  passengers  and  freight.  From  1840  to  1850  it  was  in 
New  England  that  railway  mileage  increased  most  rapidly. 

Outreachings  toward  the  West.  Before  1850  the  railroads  were 
located  almost  exclusively  in  the  states  along  the  Atlantic  ;  the 
only  important  line  in  what  was  then  called  the  West  was  one 
running  from  Sandusky  to  Cincinnati.  Up  to  1850  the  internal 
commerce,  at  least,   was  carried  almost  solely  upon   natural  and 


Superior 


^„vA\' 


■  0  «>       -fsjA-X 


tCoWOi^"' 


jlKGlN*^;-' 


Oh^^HlUC^'' 


'>;,    4-'-'vHR61<*i 


KANSAS/^- 


V:^ 


Vv 


ewS"'"" 


nal> 


0               100            200            300            400 
1  , 
Longitude  89°  Went      from       85 IJi.-<Tiwich 81  • 


yiv'  \  . 


KAII.KOADS    IN    OI'KKATIOX    IX   TIIK    I'MTKI)    STATKS    IN    1S5(I 


3J4  INDl  SIRV    AM)    IKADE 

artificial  waterways  and  uijon  roads.  I'rcviuus  to  1850  only  one 
line  of  railroad  had  been  completed  between  tidewater  and  the 
great  interior  basins  of  the  country,  and  even  this  line  was  a 
series  of  links  rather  than  a  continuous  chain.  These  links  were 
later  absorbed  into  the  New  York  Central.  Carriage  of  freight  on 
this  line  was  taxed  by  the  collection  of  canal  tolls  in  addition  to 
other  charges  for  transportation,  the  result  being  a  virtual  prohibi- 
tion of  traffic.  The  commerce  resulting  from  these  early  roads 
amounted  to  little  until  the  middle  of  the  century  was  passed. 
The  line  next  opened,  from  Boston  to  Ogdcnsburg,  was  also  com- 
posed of  distinct  links  ;  and  the  third,  the  New  York  and  Erie, 
was  not  opened  until  185 1.  The  fourtli  was  the  I'ennsylvania, 
whose  mountain  division  was  opened  in  1854,  after  a  period  of 
the  use  of  inclined  planes  with  stationary  engines,  constructed  by 
the  state.  The  fifth  line,  the  lialtimore  and  Ohio,  was  opened  in 
1853  ;  and  in  1859  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  railroad  finally 
reached  the  Mississippi.  In  the  extreme  north  the  line  now 
known  as  the  Grand  Trunk  was  finished  in  1853.  In  1858  the 
Virginia  system  connected  up  with  the  Memphis  and  Charleston 
and  the  Nashville  and  Chattanooga  railroads. 

Trunk  lines.  Upon  these  original  lines  was  erected  the  vast 
system  that  connects  our  interior  with  the  seaboard  and  that 
served  as  an  outlet  for  its  products,  w^hich  would  have  had  little 
or  no  commercial  value  apart  from  cheap  transportation.  By  i860 
the  railroad  lines  named  above,  assisted  by  the  Erie  Canal,  afforded 
ample  means  for  the  speedy  and  cheap  transportation  of  products 
seeking  Eastern  markets,  and  were  entirely  competent  to  deal  with 
that  stream  of  trade. 

Conditions  previous  to  the  Civil  War.  This  shows  that  the 
trunk  lines  were  laid  down  between  1850  and  i860  and  that  the 
same  period  was  experiencing  the  consolidation  of  short  lines  into 
systems.  By  1853  it  was  possible  to  travel  from  the  seaboard  to 
Chicago  by  an  all-rail  route.  In  the  decade  after  1850  there  was 
much  activity  in  railroad-building  in  the  region  north  of  the  Ohio 
and  east  of  the   Mississippi,  supported  by  Federal  grants,  state 


RAILROADS  325 

subsidies,  and  general  good  times  —  until  these  last  were  inter- 
rupted by  the  panic  of  1857.  This  calamity,  followed  closely  by 
the  Civil  War,  put  a  check  on  railroad-building  which  was  not 
thoroughly  shaken  off  till  1868.  Then  followed  five  years  of 
intense  speculation  in  railroad  securities,  during  which,  also,  the 
mileage  of  the  whole  country  increased  40  per  cent. 

Transcontinental  lines.  Meanwhile  there  was  an  unparal- 
leled extension  toward  the  Far  West.  The  discovery  of  gold  in 
California  and  the  movement  of  population  thither  awakened 
interest ;  and  in  order  to  get  that  section  connected  with  the 
East  the  Federal  government  was  liberal  in  its  gifts  to  companies 
that  would  undertake  the  tremendous  task  of  building  railroads 
to  the  Pacific  coast.  There  was  also  a  feeling  that  the  F"ar  West 
could  be  yoked  closely  to  the  free  states  of  the  North  in  the 
struggle  which  was  threatening  between  North  and  South.  Yet 
the  idea  of  a  railroad  from  New  York  to  the  Pacific  had  been 
brought  forward  as  early  as  1834.  The  supposed  barrenness  of 
the  W'est  and  other  attendant  difficulties  caused  this  proposi- 
tion to  attract  little  attention  ;  but  Congress  was  finally  induced, 
after  much  agitation,  to  grant  liberal  subsidies  to  the  Union  Pacific 
and  Central  Pacific  railroads.  Then  the  former  built  westward 
from  the  Missouri  River  and  the  latter  eastward  from  Sacramento, 
which  was  already  connected  with  San  I^Yancisco  ;  and  in  1869 
the  two  lines  met,  forming  the  first  transcontinental  line. 

Rapid  progress  after  the  war.  We  left  the  general  railroad 
situation,  in  the  paragraph  before  the  last,  at  1873.  The  panic  of 
that  year  is  the  next  factor  in  railroad  as  well  as  in  national  history. 
It  is  said  to  have  been  caused  by  the  too  rapid  building  of  rail- 
roads and  the  over-investment  in  them  as  much  as  by  any  other 
single  factor.  rYom  1873  to  1878  our  railway  mileage  was  increased 
by  only  1 1,500,  so  that  the  total  mileage  in  1880  was  only  a  little 
over  93,000.  Then,  during  the  decade  following,  this  mileage 
was  nearly  doubled,  some  73,000  miles  being  constructed.  Though 
all  sections  of  the  country  had  their  part,  the  central  and  Western 
sections  were  most  active,  since  they  were  being  rapidly  settled 


326  INDIISTRV  AND    IRADK 

and  were  making  marked  progress  in  material  development.  In 
some  cases  railways  preceded  settlements,  preparing  the  way  for 
the  immigrant ;  there  was  much  flimsy  construction  in  places,  so 
that,  as  it  was  said,  some  lines  consisted  only  of  a  "  right  of  way 
and  two  streaks  of  rust." 

Recent  construction.  Since  1893  the  advance  has  been  rather 
deliberate,  the  annual  mileage  constructed  averaging  about  2000 ; 
but  with  the  return  of  prosperity,  in  1898,  there  was  a  gradual 
recovery  in  rate  of  building,  several  thousands  of  miles  being 
added  each  year.  The  fact  of  it  is  that  traffic  on  our  railways  has 
increased  recently  much  faster  than  the  mileage  built.  Judging 
from  the  embargoes  that  have  to  be  laid  b\'  the  railways  and  the 
delays  that  at  times  are  borne  by  those  who  deal  with  freight  de- 
partments, it  would  seem,  even  to  the  non-expert,  that  the  busi- 
ness of  the  countr)'  is  outgrowing  the  available  railway  ser\'ice. 
This  view  is  held  by  some  railway  specialists.  Nevertheless  our 
railway  mileage  is  something  like  two  fifths  that  of  the  whole 
world  and  exceeds  the  combined  mileage  of  all  the  countries  of 
Europe. 

Increase  of  mileage.  The  following  table  gives  a  detailed  out- 
line of  single-track  mileage  at  successive  dates  : 

Year  Mileage        Vear  Mileage 

1830 23  1901 198.743 

1840 2818  [902 202.938 

•850 9021  1903 207,335 

i860 30,626  1904 2  [2,394 

1870 52,922  1905 217.341 

1880 93,267  1911 246,236 

1890 166.702  191 4 263,547 

1900 194.262 

At  the  present  day,  along  with  the  single-track  mileage,  we  have 
over  130,000  additional  miles  of  second,  third,  and  fourth  track 
and  of  yard-track  and  sidings. 

Railroad  rates.  As  the  railway  net  of  the  country  has  ex- 
panded, numerous  improvements  have  appeared  all  along  the  line, 


327 


3^S 


TNl)rsrK\    AM)    IRADK 


particularly  in  the  service  given  the  public  ;  and  together  with 
such  improvements  has  come  a  marked  reduction  in  freight 
and  passenger  rates.  In  the  early  da\s  of  railway  transportation 
the  American  public  paid  from  four  to  thirteen  cents  per  ton 
mile  for  carrying  goods  ;  in  some  of  the  early  charters  authority 
was  given  to  charge  a  rate  on  bulky  articles  of  ten  cents  a  ton 
mile  or  of  ten  cents  per  cubic-foot  measurement  for  a  distance 
of  a  hundred  miles.  At  the  present  time  our  average  freight  rate 
per  ton  mile  is  close  on  to  ten  mills,  but  the  figure  varies  greatly 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.    It  should  be  realized,  though 

it  is  not  generally  known, 
that,  generally  speaking,  a 
railroad  depends  for  its  reve- 
nue upon  its  freight  service, 
the  passenger  service  count- 
ing for  no  more  than  a  small 
i^ain  or,  perhaps,  even  a  loss. 
Electrification.  The  elec- 
trification of  railway  lines  is 
a  growing  movement  of  the 
present  day ;  a  road  so 
equipped  spares  passengers  many  of  the  worst  discomforts  con- 
nected wath  travel.  It  is  predicted  that  heavy  passenger  trains 
running  at  rather  long  intervals  and  drawn  by  powerful  locomo- 
tives W'ill  give  place  to  the  more  frequent  service  of  trains  com- 
posed of  from  two  to  four  motor  cars.  That  would  mean  that  the 
railway  service  is  going  to  approximate  to  the  trolley  service, 
with  which  it  has,  in  a  number  of  localities,  come  into  competition 
and  combination.  It  was  the  invention  of  the  dynamo  that  made 
possible  the  utilization  of  electricity  to  drive  motor  cars,  and,  once 
tested  out,  the  latter  speedily  displaced  the  horse  car  ;  70  per  cent 
of  the  street-railway  mileage  of  this  country  was  run  by  animal 
power  in  1890,  while  to-day  the  electric  car  is  practically  universal. 
Revolution  wrought  by  the  railroads.  Railroads,  with  their 
numerous    problems    of    control,    capitalization,    reorganization, 


AN    ELECTRIC    LOCOMOTIVE    HAULING    A 
PASSENGER    CAR 


RAILROADS  329 

charges,  etc.,  come  in  for  a  good  share  of  this  country's  atten- 
tion. It  was  in  connection  with  transportation  that  the  American 
captain  of  industry  found  fields  worth  conquering.  It  was  here, 
perhaps,  that  adequate  opportunity  was  first  provided  for  the  dis- 
play of  the  highest  business  ability.  Our  great  accomplishments 
in  railway  engineering  and  operation  have  been  brought  about 
within  the  lifetime  of  some  of  our  oldest  fellow  citizens.  This 
has  meant  a  tremendous  industrial  revolution  through  the  substitu- 
tion in  transportation  of  mechanical  for  muscular  power.  The 
astonishing  rapidity  of  these  improvements  in  transportation  forms 
a  very  good  measure  of  the  pace  of  industrial  progress  not  only 
in  this  country  but  in  the  world  at  large  during  the  period  since 
the  invention  of  the  steam  locomotive. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  THE  MERCHANT  MARINE 


Importance  of  the  minor  waterways.  If  anyone  is  anxious  to 
see  the  development  of  American  industry  as  it  really  has  been, 
he  must  not  shut  his  eyes  to  the  importance  of  even  the  smallest 
type  of  our  natural  waterways.  For  the  eastern  half  of  our  coun- 
try, as  it  developed,  there  was  on  the  one  side  the  sea  and  on 
the  other  the  Mississippi  and  its  great  tributaries  —  the  impor- 
tance of  these  cannot  be  overlooked  by  anyone.  But  the  whole 
country  between  was  a  network  of  protected  tidewater  bays,  inlets, 
and  small  streams  on  the  east,  and,  farther  west,  of  innumerable 
small  tributaries  to  the  great  river  system.  But  the  small  streams 
and  the  upper  courses  of  the  larger  ones,  far  above  the  point  of 
steamboat  navigation,  were  of  great  service  in  floating  products 
of  various  sorts  down  to  the  navigable  waters.  Small  boats  pene- 
trated long  distances  upstream  and  tapped  many  small  springs  of 
trade  which  without  them  could  not  have  contributed  to  the  great 
currents  of  commerce. 

The  traffic  of  the  natural  waterways.  The  canals  did  not 
diminish  the  importance  of  our  natural  waterways,  large  or  small  ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  increased  it.  They  were  generally  laid  out 
for  the  purpose  of  connecting  ways  already  provided  by  nature, 
and  they  increased  the  traffic  on  such  ways  up  to  the  time  when 
the  railroad  succeeded  in  rendering  other  forms  of  internal  trans- 
portation, for  a  time  at  least,  obsolescent.  There  are  not  many 
statistics  to  be  had  covering  the  traffic  upon  natural  waterways, 

330 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  MERCHANT  MARINE    331 

least  of  all  upon  the  smaller  ones ;  the  government  did  not 
assume  control  of  the  waterways  as  it  did  of  the  railways,  and 
the  water  carriers  were  not  obliged  to  submit  to  the  authorities 
such  statistical  reports  as  those  required  of  the  railroads.  Con- 
sequently, even  for  the  period  when  the  inland  waterways  did  the 
bulk  of  the  carrying  business,  there  are  no  very  complete  returns 
of  an  exact  nature.  General  considerations,  which  are,  however, 
no  less  true  for  being  general,  are  about  all  that  we  can  cite  for 
the  earlier  period. 

The  two  great  systems.  The  two  great  natural  systems  w^ere 
the  Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  latter  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  Great  Lakes.  For  over  two  centuries  many 
events  had  conspired  to  increase  the  significance  of  these  two 
water  routes.  They  had  been  of  great  utility  to  the  American 
Indians,  and  had  then  been  traversed  by  explorers,  missionaries, 
fur  traders,  soldiers,  and  sailors  of  various  nations  —  of  France, 
Spain,  Great  Britain,  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  and  the  United 
States.  Then  came  the  rapid  settlement  of  the  Western  states, 
from  Canada  to  the  Gulf ;  and  presently  there  was  an  enormous 
supply  of  products  and  demand  for  merchandise  from  distant 
parts,  which  called  for  channels  through  which  extended  freight 
transportation  might  take  place.  But  there  were  really  only  these 
two  alternative  routes  —  in  fact,  most  regions  had  no  choice  at  all, 
for  it  was  clearly  indicated  to  them  which  of  the  two  routes 
represented  the  easier  and  cheaper  means  of  communication  with 
the  outside  world. 

Early  river  traffic.  There  w^as  relatively  little  traffic  on  the 
interior  waterways,  especially  on  the  Mississippi,  before  the  day 
of  the  steamboat.  The  movement  between  the  Ohio  River  settle- 
ments and  New  Orleans  was  abruptly  interfered  with  in  1785, 
when  Spain  enforced  commercial  restrictions  on  the  lower  Mis- 
sissippi ;  and  it  was  well  along  in  the  last  century,  after  the 
Louisiana  Purchase  and  the  War  of  1H12,  before  the  obstruction 
and  annoyance  to  traders  were  sufficiently  removed  to  allow  of 
steady  traffic.    We  have  already  spoken  of  the  flatboat  trips  down 


33-  INDl'STRV  AND  TRADK 

the  MississipjM.  It  is  hard  to  reaUzc  the  difficulties  of  the  early 
river  navigators,  who,  besides  contending  with  the  snags  and 
shifting  shoals  of  the  Mississippi,  had  to  maintain  a  constant 
watch  against  hostile  savages.  The  settlements  down  river  were 
small  and  the  people  had  no  great  purchasing  power ;  there  was 
not  much  use  stopping  north  of  the  delta.  But  two  events  came 
about  soon  after  the  War  of  1812,  which  had  a  great  influence 
on  the  development  of  the  West,  and  so  of  river  navigation. 
These  were,  first,  the  introduction  of  the  steamboat  upon  West- 
ern waters  and,  second,  the  spread  of  cotton  culture  into  the 
Southwest. 

Factors  favoring  river  navigation.  The  steamboat  was  intro- 
duced upon  the  Western  interior  waters  in  181 1,  and  by  18 17 
was  becoming  common  upon  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  ; 
and  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  Northwest  was  put  into  easy  com- 
munication with  the  East,  with  the  result  of  an  immediate  increase 
of  trade.  It  was  the  introduction  of  cotton-raising  in  the  South- 
west that  gave  to  the  Northwestern  states  their  first  important 
market.  These  two  events  happened  at  about  the  same  time,  in 
the  second  decade  of  the  century ;  and  a  trade  between  the  farm- 
ers of  the  Northwest  and  the  cotton  planters  of  the  Southwest, 
unimportant  before   181 5,  soon  grew  to  large  proportions. 

The  river  steamboat.  With  the  steamboat  it  was  possible  to 
make  trips  up  the  river  as  well  as  down  ;  but  it  was  some  time 
before  the  steamer  was  able  to  eliminate  the  cruder  crafts  —  rafts 
and  flatboats  —  from  the  river.  A  good  deal  of  experimenting 
had  to  be  done  before  a  type  of  boat  adapted  to  river  traffic  was 
evolved  ;  it  proved  to  be  a  broad,  shallow  craft,  able  to  carry  a 
thousand  tons,  though  drawing  but  four  feet  of  water.  By  1826 
nearly  60  per  cent  of  all  the  freight  brought  down  the  river  to 
New  Orleans  came  by  steamer,  and  from  this  time  the  steamboat 
traffic  continued  to  increase  until  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 
By  it  freight  rates  were  lowered,  as  well  as  trade  increased,  and 
it  continued  to  be  important  until  the  extension  of  the  railways 
marked  its  downfall ;  at  first  the  railways  assisted  it,  by  serving 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  MERCHANT  MARINE    333 

as  feeders  to  water  lines,  but  this  was  for  a  brief  period  only.  By 
i860  the  through  Chicago-New  York  route  was  drawing  traffic 
eastward  at  the  expense  of  New  Orleans. 

Competition  of  the  railroads.  Until  the  middle  of  the  century 
Mississippi  Valley  freight  was  moved  chiefly  by  water.  The  rail- 
way lines  were  short  and  were  interested  for  the  most  part  in  the 
passenger  traffic  ;  in  so  far  as  they  carried  freight  at  all  they 
carried  it  to  the  nearest  water  line.  But  shortly  after  1850 
the  railroads  began  their  destructive  competition  with  the  water 


A   MISSISSIPPI    RIVER   STEAMBOAT 


routes,  and  by  i860  they  were  endangering  the  river  traffic.  Then 
came  the  Civil  War,  which  closed  the  Southern  ports,  and  traffic 
toward  the  South  ceased.  But  the  railways  continued  to  extend 
during  the  strife  and  to  gain  greater  and  greater  advantages  in  the 
competition.  Then,  after  the  war,  the  lines  running  east  and 
west  were  much  improved,  with  the  result  of  drawing  the  river 
commerce  across  the  mountains  to  the  East.  In  1869  it  was  said 
that  grain  could  be  moved  by  rail  from  St.  Louis  to  the  North 
Atlantic  seaboard  much  more  cheaply  than  from  St.  Louis  to  New 
Orleans  by  steamboat,  l^y  1873  the  railways  were  carrying  to 
market  over  four  fifths  of  the  grain  and  provisions  of  the  West, 
and  by  1874  they  had  paralleled  the  rf)utc  from  north  to  south  by  a 
line  running  along  the  Mississippi  from  Chicago  to  New  Orleans. 


334  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Present-day  river  traffic.  At  the  present  time  the  most  impor- 
tant features  of  the  river  traffic  below  St.  Louis  are  two  :  local  trade 
between  villages  scattered  along  the  river,  and  the  transfer  of 
cotton  along  the  lower  Mississippi.  There  is,  however,  consider- 
able traffic  down  the  Ohio.  The  water  traffic  of  the  Mississippi, 
like  that  of  the  Erie  Canal  before  it  was  modernized,  was  not 
properly  organized  and  supplied  with  mechanical  appliances  for 
loading  and  unloading  adequate  to  enable  it  to  compete  with  the 
railwavs.  The  vessels  were  owned  largely  by  private  individuals 
who  showed  little  desire  to  cooperate.  The  coal-carrying  business 
on  the  Ohio  has   been  well  managed,  but  it  is  an  exception. 

The  Great  Lakes  system.  The  Great  Lakes  constitute  the 
grandest  inland  waterway  of  the  country  and  of  the  world.  They 
are  connected  with  the  Atlantic  by  a  channel  available  for  vessels 
of  fourteen  feet  draft  at  its  shallowest  point,  namely,  the  short 
artificial  stretch  known  as  the  Welland  Canal,  between  Lakes  Erie 
and  Ontario ;  this  canal  is  now  being  deepened.  The  largest 
ocean-going  vessels  can  come  up  to  Quebec  and  Montreal,  although 
originally  the  St.  Lawrence  was  shallow  at  several  points  between 
these  cities,  so  that  during  a  large  part  of  the  season  of  navigation 
vessels  drawing  over  ten  or  twelve  feet  could  not  get  to  the  latter 
city.  Of  course  the  greatest  handicap  of  the  whole  system  is  that  it 
is  usually  ice-bound  from  the  end  of  November  to  the  end  of  April. 

Improvement  of  the  Lake  system.  The  Canadian  government 
has  spent  large  sums  of  money  in  improving  the  St.  Lawrence 
and  in  building  the  Welland  and  other  canals.  In  185 1  they 
commenced  to  deepen  the  river  channel  and  by  1882  had  a  depth 
of  twenty-five  feet,  which  has  now^  been  increased  to  upwards  of 
thirty.  The  American  government  also  has  spent  a  great  deal, 
especially  on  the  "  Spo"  canal,  between  Lakes  Superior  and  Huron. 
This  improved  system  of  waterways  is  of  inestimable  benefit  to 
the  industries  of  both  countries ;  the  total  navigable  length  of  the 
Great  Lakes  is  one  thousand  four  hundred  and  ten  miles,  and 
they  are  the  bearers  of  the  greatest  bulk  of  shipping  upon  any 
body  of  inland  water  in  the  world. 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  MERCHANT  MARINE    335 

Lake  traffic.  Our  merchant  fleet  on  the  Great  Lakes  is  a  large 
one.  About  six  sevenths  of  this  is  steam-driven.  The  average 
size  of  the  steamers  is  small,  but  recent  additions  to  the  fleet  are 
as  large  as  many  ocean  liners.  Of  the  Lake  traffic  90  per  cent 
is  confined  to  four  articles :  iron  ore,  grain  (including  flour), 
lumber,  and  coal  —  the  first  of  these  forming  about  half  of  the 


MODERN    TRAFFIC   OX    THE   GREAT    LAKES 
Note  devices  for  loading  and  unloading  quickly 

total  annual  tonnage.  And  90  per  cent  of  the  ore  has,  for  its 
destination,  ports  on  Lake  Erie,  the  only  important  receiving  point 
not  on  that  lake  being  Chicago.  Wheat  is  received  mainly  at 
Buffalo,  lumber  at  Chicago,  while  anthracite  generally  starts  from 
Buffalo,  and  soft  coal  from  several  Erie  ports. 

Organization  of  the  service.  The  organization  of  the  transporta- 
tion service  on  the  Great  Lakes  has  been  so  perfected  that  the 
average  freight  charge  per  ton  mile  is  slightly  less  than  one  tenth 
that  of  the  average  railroad  rate  for  the  whole  country.  There  is 
much  saving  in  shipping  by  water.    Freight  shipments  on  the' 


336  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

l^ikes  arc  ordinarily  over  long  distances,  and  nearly  all  the  steam- 
boat lines  operate  on  two  or  more  lakes.  The  eastbound  tonnage 
far  exceeds  the  westbound.  Most  traffic  of  the  Cireat  Lakes  is 
raw  material  carried  in  great  bulk.  "Time  is  a  factor  of  small  im- 
portance in  the  transportation  of  such  material,  and  so  it  can  be 
handled,  going  by  water,  at  a  rate  which  renders  railroad  compe- 
tition impossible. 

Extent  of  our  inland  waterways.  Our  wealth  in  inland  water- 
ways is  not  exhausted  with  the  consideration  of  the  Mississippi 
and  Great  Lakes  systems.  The  extent  of  our  inland  waterways 
is  unmatched  in  any  other  country,  and  they  are  so  distributed 
as  to  be  readily  available  for  commerce.  The  Mississippi  system 
alone  furnishes  16,000  miles  of  waterway.  In  all  there  are  25,000 
miles  of  river  that  can  be  navigated,  and  as  much  more  that  can 
be  made  navigable.  Then  there  is  a  series  of  sounds  and  bays 
along  the  Atlantic  coast  and  the  Gulf  which  can  be  connected 
by  canals  to  form  a  continuous  inner  route  for  coastwise  traffic 
of  about  2500  miles  in  length.  Adding  in  the  Great  Lakes  route, 
the  present  and  planned  waterways  of  the  country  would  reach 
the  figure  of  55,000  miles,  of  which  only  about  half  is  now  used 
for  navigation.  There  are  many  plans  being  considered  for  im- 
proving the  waterways  to  supplement  the  railways  as  commerce- 
carriers.  The  movement  toward  improvements  has  taken  form 
in  a  number  of  waterways  associations,  some  with  local  aims  and 
others  with  national  programs.  The  ideal  system  of  internal  trans- 
portation is  where  the  waterways  and  railways  complement  and 
cooperate  with  one  another.  This  is  more  common  in  Europe 
than  it  is  here. 

The  Merchant  Marine 

The  salt-water  fleet.  The  traffic  of  the  Great  Lakes  is  carried 
on  by  a  section  of  our  merchant  marine,  but  it  is  not  of  the  fresh- 
water fleet  that  we  wish  now  to  give  an  account ;  in  what  follows 
the  merchant  marine  means  the  ships  that  perform  their  trading 
function  on  salt  water. 


a;    V    3    o     q 


337 


33^ 


INDISTRV   AM)    TRADP: 


The  colonists  were  seafarers.  A  large  proportion  of  the  set- 
tlers in  the  earliest  colonies  were  familiar  with  the  sea,  and  the 
conditions  of  life  here  w^ere  such  as  not  by  any  means  to  wean 
them  away  from  it.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  sea  and  shipping 
so  thoroughly  monopolized  the  attention  of  the  settlers,  and  that 
the  coast  was  dotted  with  shipyards  before  the  interior  had  been 
penetrated  to  anv  great  extent.    The  building  of  vessels  is  among 


AX   EIGHTEENTH-CENTUKV    .MOOKL 


the  oldest  colonial  industries.  They  were  very  small  at  first ;  in 
1 64 1  a  ship  of  three  hundred  tons  was  built  at  Salem,  which  was 
pronounced  "  prodigious,"  —  in  fact,  as  late  as  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  a  three-hundred-ton  vessel  was  regarded 
as  a  large  one.  New  England,  New  Amsterdam,  and  other  colo- 
nies were  active  in  building  vessels.  Types  of  boats  improved  as 
time  went  on,  and  the  settlers  extended  their  trade  to  the  West 
Indies,  finding  there  a  ready  market  for  colonial  staples  —  dried 
fish,  lumber,  and  rum  —  and  a  return  cargo  of  sugar  and  molasses. 
This  trade  was  very  dangerous,  for  the  coasts  were  neither  charted 
nor  lighted,  and  pirates  infested  the  West  Indies. 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  MERCHANT  MARINE    339 

Colonial  shipbuilding.  There  was  constant  encouragement  lent 
to  the  shipbuilding  industry  ;  ship  carpenters  were  urged  to  come 
to  the  country,  and  as  early  as  1639  there  was  for  them,  in  New 
England,  exemption  from  compulsory  military  service.  The  early 
merchant  vessels  had  no  navy  to  protect  them,  but  went  out  pre- 
pared to  protect  themselves.  A  merchant  seaman  of  that  time 
not  only  had  to  know  all  there  was  to  be  known  about  handling 
a  ship  but  he  must  also  be  an  expert  in  the  use  of  cannon, 
musket,  cutlass,  and  other  weapons  of  the  time.  In  pursuance 
of  their  trade  these  shipbuilders  and  seamen,  early  in  the  eight- 
eenth century,  arrived  at  the  schooner  design.  The  name  is  said 
to  have  come  from  the  verb  "to  scoon,"  meaning  to  skip  over  the 
water  in  the  manner  of  a  fiat  stone,  and  was  applied  under 
the  following  circumstances :  when  the  first  schooner,  built 
at  Gloucester,  was  being  launched,  an  enthusiastic  spectator  is  said 
to  have  exclaimed,  in  admiration,  "  See  how  she  scoons  !  "  This 
type  of  boat  speedily  proved  itself  well  adapted  to  the  demands 
of  the  time  ;  it  was  superior  to  the  square-rigger  with  two  or  three 
masts  and  required  fewer  hands  to  operate  it.  At  the  close  of  the 
colonial  period,  in  1769,  this  model  was  making  its  way  at  the 
expense  of  the  older  ones ;  for  in  the  year  mentioned  there  were 
constructed  in  the  colonies  1 1 3  square-rigged  vessels  as  against 
276  sloops  and  schooners.  The  total  tonnage  was  20,000  tons, 
as  we  have  elsewhere  mentioned,  showing  an  average  of  50  tons 
per  vessel. 

Expansion  of  the  merchant  marine.  On  December  31,  1789, 
our  merchant  fleet  amounted  to  some  200,000  tons,  of  which 
1 24,000  were  registered  for  the  foreign  trade ;  a  little  over 
68,000  tons  were  enrolled  for  the  coasting  trade,  and  the  rest 
were  engaged  in  fisheries.  The  wars  in  Europe  during  the  last 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  up  to  181 5  gave  the  neutral 
American  merchants  their  opportunity ;  they  became  the  principal 
carriers  between  the  fighting  nations  and  their  colonies.  "  While 
the  great  commercial  nations  were  fighting  one  another  for  the 
carrying  trade  of  the  world,  America  ran  away  with    the   bone 


340 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


over  whicli  they  were  quarreling."  There  was  a  big  expansion 
of  American  commerce  and  shipping  after  1789,  the  tonnage  of 
the  foreign  trade  fleet  rising  from  1 24,000  in  that  year  to  744,000 
in  1805  — an  increase  which,  measured  in  percentage,  is  probably 
unparalleled  for  such  a  length  of  time.  Then  came  the  hindrances 
to  trade  connected  with  the  Embargo  and  other  events  incident 
to  a  troubled  period  in  our  international  relations,  and  the  figure 
for  our  tonnage  had  increased   by   181 5  only  to  854,000. 


AN   AMERICAN   CLIPPER   SHIP 


The  American  ship.  At  this  time  the  commercial  relations  with 
Europe  were  regular  enough  to  warrant  schedules  of  sailing ;  the 
first  packet  line,  so  called  because  it  carried  the  mail  packets, 
was  started  in  181 5.  This  and  other  such  lines  were  operated 
with  success  and  gave  this  country  a  position  in  the  ocean  carrying 
trade  that  was  altogether  enviable.  The  American  clipper  ships 
were  famous  in  their  day  (the  name  coming  from  the  sharp  lines 
and  long  overhanging  bow  characteristic  of  them)  and  repre- 
sented an  effort  on  the  part  of  American  builders  to  bring  out  a 
fast-sailing  ship  to  compete  with  the  British  steamers.  The  first 
is  said  to  have  been  built  in  Baltimore  in  1845,  about  five  years 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  MERCHANT  MARINE    341 

after  the  steamer  had  been  introduced,  and  when  it  was  threaten- 
ing to  rob  the  American  saihng  vessels  of  both  passenger  and 
freight  business. 

The  golden  age  of  American  shipping.  The  golden  era  of  the 
American  sailing  vessel  was  the  decade  preceding  1 860.  During 
that  time  the  building  and  operating  of  such  vessels  was  attended 
with  great  gain.  The  oversea  commerce  was  carried  mainly  by 
sail,  and  there  was  a  large  passenger  and  freight  traffic  between 
our  Eastern  and  Western  seaports  which  called  for  numbers  of 
sailing  vessels.  Even  after  the  California  gold  fever  began  to 
abate,  there  was  still  the  demand  created  by  the  Crimean  War, 
for  both  France  and  the  United  Kingdom  purchased  large  num- 
bers of  American  ships  for  use  as  transports.  In  1855  over 
980,000  gross  tons  were  launched  in  American  yards,  this  repre- 
senting the  highest  mark  of  ship  construction  for  any  year  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

Decline  of  the  merchant  marine.  The  decline  in  tonnage 
connected  with  foreign  trade  has  been  rather  marked  since  the 
Civil  War;  in  1861  the  fleet  thus  engaged  amounted  to  almost 
2,500,000  tons,  a  figure  never  attained  before.  Among  the  causes 
for  decline  are  mentioned  withdrawal  of  subsidies,  burdens  on  the 
yards  from  internal-revenue  taxation  and  high  tariffs,  and  the 
extraordinary  development  of  industry,  coupled  with  the  opening 
up  of  the  West,  which  drew  attention  away.  The  complete  and 
satisfactory  explanation  of  this  decline  is  a  hard  matter.  The 
Great  War  caused  a  marked  revival  in  shipbuilding,  entirely  aside 
from  the  war  policy  of  the  government  which  called  for  many 
vessels ;  it  was  the  prospect  of  extraordinary  profit  that  gave 
the  first  stimulus.  The  figure  for  the  tonnage  of  registered  ships 
was,  in  191 2,  something  over  900,000;  by  191 3  it  exceeded 
1,000,000;  and  in  1916  reached  2,192,000,  of  which  only 
592,000  tons  were  under  sail.  It  was  after  the  Civil  War  that 
the  steamer  began  to  supersede  the  sailing  ship  in  our  merchant 
marine  ;  but  it  has  not  altogether  driven  out  the  older  type  and 
probably  will  not.     In  fact,  in  the  case  of  freight  that  can  take 


34^ 


l\|)LS'l"R\'    AM)    rKADK 


its  time,  a  return   to  wind   power   may  easily  occur,  especially  if 
it  remains  needful  to  economize  on  coal. 

The  steel  ship.  Another  change  that  the  modern  age  has  seen 
has  been  that  from  wooden  ships  to  steel  ships.  Until  1840  or 
later  wood  was  the  universal  construction  material ;  then  about 
the    middle    of   the    century    Great    Britain    began    to    use    iron 


AX   OCEAN    LINER    IX    NEW   YORK    HARBOR 


extensively,  building  but  few  wooden  vessels  after  1850.  At  this 
period  we  had  cheap  wood  and  expensive  iron,  and  so  stuck  to 
the  old  material  until  about  1870,  while  by  1880  the  British  were 
ready  to  advance  yet  farther,  from  iron  to  steel.  The  result  of 
our  backwardness  has  been  that  we  became  dependent  upon  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  especially  upon  Great  Britain,  for  the  carry- 
ing of  our  commerce.  During  the  last  half  century  there  w'ere  such 
tempting  opportunities  for  capital  and  labor  in  land-development 
that  they  were  less  attracted  to  the  water. 


NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  MERCHANT  MARINE  343 

Terminals.  Because  of  the  tremendous  expense  involved  in 
providing  terminals  for  much  larger  craft,  it  seems  that  the  size 
of  vessels,  especially  ocean  liners,  has  reached,  or  is  approach- 
ing, a  limit.  Docks  and  piers  are  already  strained  in  their  capaci- 
ties for  taking  care  of  our  biggest  ships,  and  until  there  shall  be 
some  epoch-making  improvements  in  terminals  the  increase  in 
size  of  vessels  must  necessarily  proceed  at  a  slow  pace. 


A    SUBMARINE  —  THE    IlOl.l.AM)     rVIl'. 

The  coastwise  fleet.  We  shall  conclude  with  brief  allusion  to 
our  coastwise  traffic.  Only  American  vessels  may  engage  in  this, 
a  regulation  which  sets  it  under  conditions  quite  different  from 
those  of  foreign  commerce.  Thus  the  growth  of  the  coastwise 
fleet  has  been  automatic  ;  unless  trade  was  to  be  hampered,  the 
coastwise  fleet  had  to  keep  pace  with  the  economic  expansion  of 
the  country.  At  present  our  enrolled  vessels,  which  include 
not  only  those  engaged  in  coastwise  trade  but  also  those  upon 
inland  waterways  (which  must  likewise  meet  the  needs  of  our 
expanding  economic  life),  total  well  over  6,000,000  tons  —  this 
figure  not  including  ships  of  less  than  20  tons. 


344 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE- 


Shipping  as  an  investment.  It  is  plain  enough  that  the  destiny 
of  our  merchant  marine  is  closely  linked  up  with  the  question  as 
to  where  wc  can  put  our  money  to  best  advantage.    If  profitable 


A  HYDROAEROPLANE  OF  THE   UNITED  STATES  NAVY  JUST  ABOUT  TO 
LEAVE  THE  WATER 


i&  Ci-'iciiiiittee  un  PubiiL  JiiiuimdUuu 
WELL   AWAY    AND    HEADED    FOR   THE   CLOUDS 

opportunities  come  in  shipping,  and  capital  is  allowed  to  make  use 
of  them  without  unreasonable  restriction,  its  flow  will  set  in  auto- 
matically toward  the  marine  just  as  it  automatically  withdrew  from 
it  when  conditions  became  unfavorable  as  compared  with  those 
existing  in  other  enterprises.  We  shall  doubtless  find  ourselves 
from  now  on  in  possession  of  a  large  and  growing  merchant  marine. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  TRANSPORTATION  UPON  AMERICAN 
INDUSTRIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

Trade  and  industrial  development.  From  what  has  been  said  in 
preceding  chapters  it  is  clear  enough  that  the  industrial  progress 
of  any  country  depends  very  largely  upon  the  degree  of  perfection 
attained  by  the  transportation  system.  For  trade,  on  anything  but 
the  most  meager  scale,  is  impossible  without  transportation  ;  and 
without  trade  there  is  no  opportunity  for  industry  on  the  large 
scale,  where  many  men  must  spend  all  their  time  making  a  single 
product.  This  last  is  something  which  tliey  could  not  do  unless 
there  were  other  groups  of  men,  perhaps  at  some  considerable 
distance,  who  were  ready  to  supply  them  with  the  various  articles 
which  they  need. 

Trade  and  civilization.  In  fact,  we  can  go  farther  than  this  and 
say  that  without  the  development  of  trade  on  a  rather  large  scale 
civilization  itself  would  scarcely  be  possible.  Trade  has  been  called 
"  the  handmaid  of  civilization,"  but  it  is  rather  its  forerunner  and 
way-preparer.  No  other  agent  in  human  history  has  been  so 
powerful  in  spreading  civilization  as  has  the  trader.  Led  by  the 
desire  for  profits,  he  has  made  his  way  to  the  remotest  corners 
of  the  earth  and  has  always  carried  with  him  the  products  of 
civilization  :  tools,  inventions,  foods,  textiles  ;  and  arts,  letters,  and 
other  less  material  things  as  well.  From  him  the  more  backward 
peoples  have  learned  first  the  products  and  then  the  j^rocesses 
of  a  more  advanced  culture  ;  and  when  trade  relations  have  been 

345 


346  INDISTRV   AM)    IRADK 

steady  and  frequent  enough,  the  more  backward  race  has  usually 
been  raised  toward  the  higher  plane  of  life. 

Transportation  and  American  industry.  The  advance  of  any 
country  in  material  prosperitx'  is  dependent,  in  large  degree,  upon 
the  transportation  facilities  available.  These  are  so  necessary  that 
they  are  often  overlooked,  for,  like  the  presence  of  the  atmosphere, 
they  are  taken  to  be  a  matter  of  course.  People  get  their  eyes 
upon  the  stream  of  trade  and  seem  to  regard  that  as  the  funda- 
mental factor  in  prosperity,  not  realizing  to  the  full  that  all  the 
articles  of  trade  have  to  be  carried  by  some  agency.  This  is  true 
in  the  history  of  our  own  countr)-.  It  is  not  going  too  far  to 
assert  that  there  is  no  single  influence  which  has  played  a  more 
essential  part  in  American  industry  than  transportation. 

How  our  history  centers  about  transportation.  During  the 
colonial  period,  when  we  depended  chiefly  upon  foreign  com- 
merce, we  were  compelled  to  use  marine  transportation.  This 
continued  well  into  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  shipping 
and  carrying  trade  still  ranked  in  importance  with  the  growing 
manufactures.  Later,  when  we  had  developed  a  great  internal 
commerce,  our  chief  interest  was  a  national  system  of  transporta- 
tion. Then  we  devoted  the  greater  part  of  our  accumulations  of 
capital  and  much  of  our  keenest  business  ability  to  the  develop- 
ment of  what  were  called  internal  improvements  —  mostly  trans- 
portation projects.  In  connection  with  these  there  first  appeared 
those  characteristic  figures  of  American  society,  the  millionaire 
and  the  captain  of  industry  ;  and  here,  too,  there  developed,  more 
rapidly  than  anywhere  else,  the  great  business  corporation.  We 
have  not  always  realized  the  importance  of  this  development  of 
internal  improvements,  but  have  given  more  attention  to  the 
growth  of  manufactures,  to  currency  and  banking  systems,  and 
to  other  such  enterprises  ;  but  no  one  of  these  matters  has  come 
anywhere  near  exerting  the  influence  upon  our  economic  growth 
that  has  been  wielded  by  improvements  in  transportation.  In 
fact,  since  1815  our  most  conspicuous  industrial  achievements 
have  depended  directly  upon  this  factor. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  TRANSPORTATION  347 

How  America  captured  the  cotton  market.  To  illustrate,  let  us 
take  that  early  American  triumph,  the  almost  complete  monopoly 
of  the  world's  cotton  market.  We  have  seen  in  a  foregoing  chap- 
ter that  we  possess  a  climate  and  soil  peculiarly  adapted  to  cotton 
production  ;  but  these  alone  would  not  have  secured  the  monopoly 
of  the  market.  It  required  the  network  of  navigable  streams  which 
cover  the  whole  Southwest.  But  even  their  presence  was  not  by 
itself  enough  ;  it  was  the  invention  of  the  steamboat,  which  sud- 
denly converted  them  into  a  first-class  transportation  system,  that 
insured  success.  Similarly,  it  was  not  alone  the  possession  of 
natural  grainfields  that  gave  us  first  place  in  the  international 
trade  in  breadstuffs ;  it  was  the  ease  with  which  railroads  could 
be  constructed  in  those  regions,  combined  with  our  improvements 
in  rolling  stock,  that  enabled  us  to  avail  ourselves  of  our  natural 
ad\antages.  In  general,  we  have  in  this  country  a  remarkable 
territorial  division  of  labor,  which  is  the  basis  of  our  internal  com- 
merce. No  other  country  shows  anything  like  it.  Through  it  we 
have  been  able  to  reach  that  great  development  of  rich  natural 
resources  along  all  lines  which  has  formed  the  basis  of  our  pros- 
perity. But  this  also  is  largely  the  result  of  easy  and  cheap 
transportation,  which  has  smoothed  the  way  for  a  copious  internal 
commerce. 

Transportation  is  vital.  It  is  sometimes  easier  to  realize  the 
importance  of  that  to  which  we  are  commonly  accustomed  if  we 
try  to  imagine  it  utterly  absent.  Let  the  reader  pick  out  any  in- 
dustry he  likes  and  try  to  imagine  it  in  operation  in  the  absence  of 
existing  transportation  facilities,  and  he  will  quickly  realize  how  all 
modern  industry  rests  upon  modern  transportation  development. 

Transportation  increases  property  values.  There  is  another 
way  in  which  the  transportation  system  affects  industrial  and  social 
life,  namely,  through  the  increase  of  property  values.  Railroads 
in  this  country  have  exerted  a  powerful  influence  along  this  line 
—  much  more  powerful  than  in  some  other  countries.  In  every 
part  of  England  are  to  be  found  large  cities  which  take  over  the 
products  of  the  surrounding  country,  consuming  them  not  far  from 


34^  INDUSTRN    AM)    TRADE 

the  spot  where  tliey  are  raised.  It  has  been  said  that  every  British 
farmer  lives  within  sight  of  a  market.  The  same  is  true  of  man- 
ufactures ;  distances  are  short  there  and  the  railroads  have  had 
no  such  effect  in  developing  a  section  as  in  the  United  States. 
But  in  this  country,  where  distances  are  tremendous,  what  the 
farmer  needs  most  is  not  a  fertile  soil  —  for  he  has  that  —  but 
rather  a  market;  and  that  can  be  supplied  to  him  only  through 
the  agency  of  transportation.  Thus  the  railroads  increase  im- 
mensely the  value  of  property.  It  was  estimated,  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  the  increased  value  of  a  belt  of 
land  ten  miles  wide  lying  on  either  side  of  a  certain  railroad 
was  equal  to  at  least  S7.50  per  acre.  This  amounted  to  $96,000 
for  every  mile  of  road,  though  the  road  itself  cost  only  about 
S20.000  per  mile.  Thus  the  railroad  created  a  value  in  real 
property  alone  equal  to  about  five  times  its  cost. 

It  allows  of  city  growth.  The  railroads  have  likewise  increased 
property  values  at  a  considerable  distance  from  their  lines.  For 
the  development  of  a  transportation  system  is  what  allows  of  the 
growth  of  great  cities  ;  and  the  land  values  in  a  city  rise  with  its 
growth.  If  the  transportation  system  were  to  be  permanently 
paralyzed,  population  would  have  to  disperse  from  the  great  cen- 
ters, and  the  land  values  in  these  centers  would  decline,  in  many 
cases  to  zero.  In  Massachusetts  the  valuation  rose  100  per  cent 
between  1840  and  1850,  and  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  this  was 
due  to  railroad  construction. 

Transportation  and  political  unification.  It  is  worth  while  to 
mention  the  fact  that  the  transportation  system  has  political  bear- 
ings. Easy  communication  between  different  parts  of  our  country 
tends  to  strengthen  and  perpetuate  the  Union,  for  nothing  is  more 
likely  to  create  sympathy  between  human  beings  than  frequency 
of  seeing  and  communicating  with  one  another.  One  of  the  rea- 
sons for  putting  through  the  first  railroad  to  the  Pacific  coast  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  that  California  might  be  linked  in  sympathy 
with  the  free  states  of  the  North.  The  railroads  are  also  of  great 
militar\'  advantage  to  a   nation  when   it   is   at  war  with  foreign 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  TRANSPORTATION  349 

powers.  The  excellent  roads  radiating  from  Paris  are  said  to 
have  saved  that  city  from  the  German  invaders  in  the  first  few 
days  of  the  Great  War.  A  large  army  was  rushed  by  automobile 
from  Paris  to  the  Marne  within  a  few  hours.  It  can  thus  be  seen 
that  modern  states,  if  they  wish  to  secure  the  highest  stability, 
must  follow  the  example  of  the  ancient  Romans,  who  always  knit 
their  empire  together  with  the  best  of  roads.  But  the  stability 
of  a  government  is  of  very  great  importance  to  the  welfare  of 
its  industrial  life.  No  industrial  activity  of  importance  can  pros- 
per under  a  weak  and  tottering  political  system.  If,  therefore,  the 
development  of  a  transportation  system,  and  particularly  of  rail- 
roads, is  of  advantage  to  the  national  government,  it  must  thereby 
in  yet' another  way  than  those  mentioned  in  the  preceding  para- 
graphs be  of  advantage  to  a  national  industrial  life. 

Cheap  carriage.  One  of  the  marks  of  an  effective  transpor- 
tation system  is,  of  course,  cheapness  of  carriage.  An  author  of 
repute  states  that  you  could  not  construct  a  railroad  twenty  miles 
long  without  enabling  farmers  to  send  their  products  to  town  at 
from  one  half  to  one  fourth  of  what  it  had  cost  them  previously. 
This  lowering  of  rates  has  enabled  farmers  to  sell  vast  quantities 
of  products  which  before  that  could  not  pay  the  cost  of  transpor- 
tation. Illustrations  are  numerous  :  in  Maryland  freights  and  tolls 
amounting  to  several  dollars  a  ton  were  reduced  by  road-building 
to  one  cent  a  ton  ;  in  South  Carolina  a  railroad  to  the  interior 
transported  cotton  to  the  seaboard  for  a  few  cents  a  bale,  where 
it  had  previously  cost  three  or  four  dollars  to  get  it  down  by  the 
rough  and  swampy  wagon  roads. 

Costs  before  railways.  In  1832  the  writer  of  an  article  advo- 
cating the  construction  of  the  Erie  Railroad  declared  : 

It  would  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the  state  of  things  which  now  exists  in  the 
city  of  New  York.  There  would  not  then  be,  as  there  now  are,  thousands  of 
barrels  of  flour  and  other  kind  of  produce  in  proportion,  frozen  up  in  canals 
and  in  sloops  on  the  Hudson  ;  salt  would  not  now  be  selling  in  Albany  for 
$2.50  per  bushel  and  pork  at  #2  per  hundred  for  want  of  salt  to  save  it,  while 
pork  is  worth  from  $5  to  $y  in  this  city.    Coal  would  not  then  sell  here  for 


350  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

515  or  >  1 6  per  ton ;  nor  oak  wood  at  $g,  and  hickory  at  $  1 3  per  cord,  as 
has  been  the  case  for  two  or  three  weeks  past,  if  railroads  were  in  general 
use ;  but  all  kinds  of  business  would  move  on  regularly  and  be  more  equally 
divided  throughout  the  year.  Produce  could  come  to  market  as  well  in  January 
as  in  July,  and  the  farmer  would  not  be  obliged,  in  order  to  get  his  crop  to 
market  in  the  fall,  to  neglect  preparing  for  the  next. 

The  blessings  of  cheap  transportation.  At  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  people  were  just  beginning  to  experience  the 
advantages  of  cheaper  transportation,  and  it  is  of  interest  to  quote 
what  men  then  thought  of  the  change.    Says  one  of  these  writers: 

It  is  well  known  that  upon  the  ordinary  highways  the  economical  limit  to 
transportation  is  confined  w-ithin  a  comparatively  few  miles,  depending,  of 
course,  upon  the  kind  of  freight  and  the  character  of  the  roads.  Upon  the 
average  of  such  ways  the  cost  of  transportation  is  not  far  from  15  cents  per 
ton  per  mile,  which  may  be  considered  a  sufficiently  correct  estimate  for  the 
whole  country.  Estimating  at  the  same  time  the  value  of  wheat  at  $1.50  per 
bushel  and  corn  at  75  cents,  and  that  33  bushels  of  each  are  equivalent  to  a 
ton,  the  value  of  the  former  would  be  equal  to  its  cost  of  transportation  for 
330  miles,  and  the  latter  1 65  miles.  At  these  respective  distances  from  market 
neither  of  the  above  articles  would  have  any  commercial  value,  with  only  a 
common  earth  road  to  market.  But  we  find  that  we  can  move  property  upon 
railroads  at  the  rate  of  li  cents  per  ton  per  mile  [the  191 7  rate  is  between 
seven  and  eight  mills  per  ton  mile],  or  for  J^  the  cost  upon  the  earth  road. 
These  works,  therefore,  extend  the  economic  limit  of  the  cost  of  transportation 
of  the  above  articles  to  3300  and  1650  miles  respectively. 

Twentieth-century  rates.  If  this  was  the  case  more  than  half 
a  century  ago,  it  can  be  imagined  that  the  twentieth  century  would 
show  still  more  startling  figures.  A  few  of  these  may  be  cited  as 
typical  of  the  first  decade  of  this  century.  Eggs  were  then  brought 
to  New  York  from  the  West,  over  two  thousand  miles,  for  two 
and  one  half  cents  a  dozen  ;  butter  from  the  Mississippi  Valley 
to  New  York  City  for  about  one  cent  a  pound  ;  turkeys  into  New 
York  from  Texas,  in  the  winter,  for  about  one  dollar  and  a  half 
per  one  hundred  pounds.  A  three-pound  can  of  tomatoes  coming 
to  New  York  from  Maryland  paid  the  railroad  five  mills ;  and 
dressed  meat  was  brought  from  Chicago  to  New  York  for  about 
the  same  figure  per  pound.    A  sack  of  fiour  weighing  fifty  pounds 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  TRANSPORTATION  351 

was  sent  from  the  Indiana  mill  to  almost  any  Eastern  point  for 
about  eight  or  nine  cents.  Similarly  with  clothing  :  the  transpor- 
tation charge  on  the  material  used  in  making  a  pair  of  shoes  in  a 
St.  Louis  factory  averaged  a  cent  and  a  quarter,  while  the  charge 
required  to  carry  a  pair  of  shoes  to  a  buyer  in  any  part  of  the 
United  States  averaged  between  two  and  three  cents.  The  freight 
charge  paid  on  the  entire  clothing  of  a  fully  dressed  man  or 
woman  almost  anywhere  in  the  United  States  east  of  the  Mississippi 
was  somewhere  between  six  and  eighteen  cents. 

Big  systems  give  low  rates.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  freight  rates  on  raw  material  are  now  so  adjusted  that  it  is 
possible  to  manufacture  almost  any  staple  article  at  any  logical 
place  within  the  country.  Freight  rates  in  the  United  States  have 
for  decades  been  remarkably  low  —  a  condition  made  possible  by 
the  magnitude  of  the  scale  upon  which  our  transportation  is  con- 
ducted. Soon  after  the  United  States  was  drawn  into  the  Great 
War,  however,  there  was  a  marked  advance  in  freight  rates  as 
well  as  passenger  rates  throughout  the  whole  countr)\ 

Rates  of  canal  transportation.  It  would  be  possible  to  give 
figures  illustrating  the  cheapness  of  transportation  brought  about 
by  the  development  of  turnpikes  and  canals.  For  one  instance, 
in  1807  the  cost  of  transportation  between  Buffalo  and  New 
York  was  $100  per  ton,  and  the  time  required  was  twenty  days; 
this  meant  that  the  cost  of  transportation  between  these  cities 
was  three  times  the  market  value  of  wheat,  six  times  that  of  corn, 
and  twice  that  of  oats.  Thus  most  articles  were  entirely  shut  out 
of  any  extended  market.  The  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal,  eight- 
een years  later,  of  course  did  for  commerce  in  a  smaller  degree 
what  the  railroads  later  accomplished  on  a  grand  scale.  The  cost 
of  freight  between  Buffalo  and  New  York  fell  to  between  ^15 
and  $25  a  ton  and  the  time  of  transit  was  reduced  to  eight  days. 
Rates  were  steadily  lowered  by  the  use  of  the  Canal  until  they 
were  reduced  to  about  one  tenth  of  the  former  figures. 

Communications.  Transportation  and  communication  are  very 
closely  allied,  and  the  development  of  the  latter  allows  a  speeding-up 


352  INDUSTRY  AND    JRADK 

of  the  machinery  of  business  which  adds  much  to  industrial 
efficiency.  Under  the  improvement  of  communications  come  the 
development  of  such  factors  as  the  telegraph,  telephone,  cable, 
postal  service,  postal  money  service,  and  wireless  telegraphy. 
The  invention  of  duplex  telegraphy  greatly  reduced  the  cost  of 
messages;  then,  by  1880,  the  telephone  was  in  rather  common 
use,  although  its  invention  had  taken  place  only  a  few  years 
before.  The  recent  development  of  wireless  telegraphy  has  made 
it  possible  for  an  exporting  firm  to  remain  in  constant  control  of 
its  goods  while  in  transport  across  the  ocean,  and  has  otherwise 
enlarged  the  possibilities  of  business  organization. 

Good  transportation  a  condition  of  national  well-being.  It  would 
be  possible  to  fill  a  large  volume  with  facts  and  figures  illustrating 
the  subject  of  this  chapter,  but  perhaps  we  have  cited  enough 
cases  to  stimulate  reflection.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  transpor- 
tation is  not  so  fundamental  to  industrial  development  as  is  agri- 
culture. There  must  be,  first  of  all,  something  to  transport.  But 
just  as  soon  as  industry  has  developed  beyond  the  first  and  sim- 
plest stages,  it  calls  for  transportation  as  a  necessity  for  further 
growth.  Then  the  transportation  system  becomes,  to  a  more 
developed  industry,  fully  as  vital  as  are  its  supplies  of  raw 
material  —  in  fact,  as  we  have  seen,  the  very  value  of  the  raw 
materials  is  dependent  upon  the  possibility  of  moving  them  from 
one  place  to  another.  In  its  most  developed  form  modern  indus- 
trv  could  spare  the  transportation  system  about  as  well  as  it  could 
forego  its  raw  materials.  As  we  conclude  this  chapter,  therefore, 
we  see  the  truth  of  the  statement  which  may  have  seemed  to  us 
somewhat  exaggerated  at  the  outset  of  the  chapter,  that  "there 
is  no  single  influence  which  has  played  a  more  essential  part  in 
American  industry  than  transportation." 


PART  VIL    THE   PROMOTION   OF 
AMERICAN   INDUSTRIES 

CHAPTER  XXX 

INTERNATIONAL  COMPETITION  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  AND 
COMMERCIAL  SUPREMACY 

Summary  of  preceding  sections.  In  the  preceding  parts  of  this 
book  our  attention  has  been  turned  to  the  basic  factors  of  Ameri- 
can industrial  development,  namely,  our  natural  productive  areas 
and  greatly  diversified  natural  resources,  and  the  qualities  of  the 
men  who  have  been  present  to  utilize  what  nature  provided. 
Then  we  have  followed  out  the  development  of  the  leading  indus- 
tries created  by  our  people  and  the  wide-flung  transportation 
system  which  has  been  called  into  being  for  the  support  and 
ser\'ice  of  our  industries. 

The  stimulation  of  industrial  life.  We  have  said  something 
in  the  preceding  chapter  about  tlie  importance  of  the  transpor- 
tation system,  but  as  yet  we  have  not  made  a  business  of  describ- 
ing the  general  policy  adopted  by  the  nation  for  the  promotion 
or  stimulation  of  its  industrial  life.  However,  it  is  clear  enough 
to  anyone  who  has  kept  his  eyes  open  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  promoting,  by  the  use  of  political,  financial,  and  educational 
means,  the  chances  of  success  of  any  particular  industry  or  of 
all  industries  taken  as  a  whole.  In  this,  the  last  section  of  our 
book,   we  shall   attempt  to  outhne   some  of  the  most   important 

353 


354  INDUSTRY  AND    TRADK 

\va\s  in  whicli  our  industries  and  commerce  have  been  helped 
along  and  stimulated.  In  so  doing  we  shall  be  dealing  with 
the  present  rather  than  the  past,  for  until  recent  years  no  great 
amount  of  organized  effort,  directed  along  various  lines  to  a  com- 
mon end,  has  been  put  forth  in  the  promotion  of  our  industries. 
In  fact,  we  shall  be  dealing  rather  with  enterprises  whose  out- 
come is  not  yet  thoroughly  known  than  with  past  events  whose 
history  is  closed  —  with  that  which  we  can  do  in  the  future  rather 
than  with  that  which  we  have  done  in  the  past. 

Earlier  trade  rivalries.  All  development,  industrial  or  other, 
has  always  implied  a  struggle  between  competitors.  If  we  con- 
trolled all  the  markets  of  the  world,  and  there  was  nobody  stand- 
ing by  ready  to  take  advantage  of  us,  we  should  have  very  little 
incitement  to  improve  our  system.  As  a  matter  of  fact  no  nation 
has  ever  attained  superiority,  let  alone  supremacy,  in  industry  and 
commerce  without  the  hardest  kind  of  a  struggle.  In  their  small 
way  the  ancient  nations  struggled  just  as  hard  as  the  modern 
ones  for  whatever  advantages  they  aimed  at  or  attained.  The 
first  great  scene  of  conflict  for  western  nations  was  on  and  about 
the  Mediterranean  Sea.  This  is  the  period  of  commerce  which 
is  sometimes  called  the  Mediterranean,  because  the  market  for 
the  control  of  which  the  various  competitors  struggled  depended 
upon  commercial  supremacy  over  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  Until 
the  Discoveries  Period  of  the  early  sixteenth  century  that  which 
corresponded  to  the  present  world  market  v.-as  relatively  small, 
but  after  discovery  and  colonization  had  begun,  there  came  into 
being  a  real  world-wide  market  and  a  rivalry  for  the  first  place 
in  producing  goods  for  that  market. 

Rivalry  for  the  world  market.  The  first  rivals  in  the  world 
market  were  Portugal  and  Spain,  but  their  competition  was  com- 
mercial rather  than  industrial ;  they  did  not  attempt  to  produce 
goods  for  the  world  market,  but  were  largely  engrossed  in  exploit- 
ing their  colonies  and  in  the  spice  trade.  In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  competition  was  between  Holland,  France,  and  England, 
but  even  then  this  competition  was  mainly  along  commercial  rather 


INDUSTRIAL  AND   COMMERCIAL   SUPREMACY     355 

than  industrial  lines.  That  is,  there  did  not  exist  in  each  of  the 
competing  countries  a  body  of  domestic  industries  which  threw 
its  output  into  the  world  market  in  competition  with  the  products 
of  the  other  nations,  but  there  was  simply  trade  in  commodities 
irrespective  of  their  origin.  However,  such  a  body  of  industries 
gradually  developed,  especially  in  England,  w^hich  emerged  from 
the  struggle  holding  first  place.  Her  grip  upon  this  suprem- 
acy was  so  strong  that  during  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
centur}',  and  until  well  along  into  the  nineteenth,  she  stood  with- 
out any  serious  rivals  in  industr)^,  especially  manufacturing  and 
mining,  and  remained  in  command  of  the  world's  markets. 

The  strength  of  Great  Britain.  It  is  instructive  to  note  the 
causes  of  this  supremacy,  for  the  study  of  England's  case  throws 
considerable  light  upon  our  own  opportunities  and  destiny  along 
these  lines.  Briefly,  the  great  economic  strength  and  commercial 
development  of  the  British  Isles  is  largely  a  matter  of  favorable 
geographical  environment  and  of  a  marked  capacity  for  adjust- 
ment shown  by  an  industrious  and  intelligent  population.  Climate 
and  other  elements  of  the  environment  combined  to  stimulate 
a  development  of  industries  ;  the  location  of  the  islands,  the 
fact  that  they  were  islands  and  were  thus  separated  from  the 
rest  of  Europe,  though  in  proximity  to  it,  and  the  broken  nature 
of  the  coast  line  which  formed  many  and  adequate  harbors  — 
a  multitude  of  such  factors  favored  the  struggle  for  industrial 
and  commercial  supremacy.  Then  the  character  of  the  people, 
combining  as  it  did  much  of  common  sense  and  practical  insight 
with  independence  and  other  solid  qualities,  of  dis])osition,  was 
supplemented  by  the  superiority  of  certain  individual  English- 
men in  the  matter  of  mechanical  invention.  These  inventions 
were  such  as  to  revolutionize  industry,  place  it  upon  a  modern 
basis,  and  thus  give  to  Great  Britain  the  impetus  of  an  early 
start  along  lines  of  development  that  were  to  characterize  the 
modern  world.  We  do  not  need  to  go  into  great  detail  concern- 
ing the  industrial  virtues  and  successes  of  the  British,  for  thev 
are  commonly  known. 


356  INDUSTRY   AND    IRADK 

The  challenge  of  Germany  and  of  the  United  States.  In  the  light 
of  history,  however,  the  country  which  holds  first  place  in  indus- 
try and  commerce  is  always  likely  to  be  challenged  ;  and  the 
supremacy  of  Great  Britain  has  been  challenged  by  two  other 
nations.  She  still  remains  the  "commercial  heart"  of  the  world, 
but  she  has  encountered  two  new  competitors,  Germany  and  the 
United  States,  which  have  been  coming  rapidly  into  the  fore- 
ground. At  the  time  preceding  the  Great  War  both  of  these  na- 
tions were  going  through  an  industrial  and  commercial  expansion 
through  which  Great  Britain  had  earlier  passed.  The  evidence 
for  this  statement  is  to  be  found  in  the  statistics  of  German  and 
American  industry  and  commerce  during  the  last  few  decades. 

The  chief  rivals.  Of  the  nearly  $40,000,000,000  worth  of 
goods  exchanged  annually  in  international  commerce,  about  one 
half  can  be  credited  to  five  countries :  the  United  Kingdom, 
Germany,  the  United  States,  France,  and  Holland.  But  the  real 
struggle  was  between  the  first  three  of  these  nations  ;  and  the 
industrial  and  commercial  strength  of  the  foremost  rivals  becomes 
apparent  when  it  is  realized  that  the  foreign  commerce  of  any 
one  of  them,  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War,  was 
larger  than  that  of  the  whole  world  sixty  years  before.  Each  of 
the  three  had  been  exerting  itself  to  expand  its  industries  and 
commerce,  and  lesser  rivals  had  been  putting  forth  similar  efforts. 
In  contrast  with  the  rather  disjointed  and  hit-or-miss  methods  of 
former  centuries,  the  most  modern  times  have  shown  all  of  the 
industrial  and  commercial  countries  of  the  world  taking  deliberate 
steps  toward  placing  their  industries  upon  a  scientific  basis  and 
toward  so  organizing  their  domestic  and  foreign  trade  that  they 
might  resist  the  industrial  and  commercial  attacks  of  rivals.  It 
is  of  this  topic  of  scientific  organization  of  industry  and  commerce, 
to  which  nations  have  been  incited  by  the  stress  of  competition  in 
the  world  market,  that  we  wish  to  give  a  more  detailed  account. 

Scientific  organization  of  industry.  Science  as  applied  to  in- 
dustry means,  for  one  thing,  that  industrial  plants  shall  be  located 
where  they  are  best  adapted  to  environmental  conditions  ;  that  is, 


INDUSTRIAL  AND  COMMERCIAL  SUPREMACY     357 

where  they  can  profit  by  the  easiest  methods  and  practice  the 
greatest  economies.  Agriculture,  for  example,  must  be  so  organ- 
ized that  the  various  crops  are  grown  where  conditions  are  most 
favorable.  This  demands  a  sort  of  territorial  division  of  labor 
by  which  is  attained  the  most  scientific  utilization  of  natural 
resources.  To  take  a  simple  illustration  :  if  the  cattle  rangers, 
through  ignorance  or  otherwise,  stubbornly  insisted  that  their 
ranges  must  be  in  Minnesota  or  the  Dakotas,  rather  than  in 
those  regions  which  science  has  demonstrated  to  be  the  best 
adapted  for  cattle-raising,  not  only  would  the  cattle  industry  suf- 
fer but  a  serious  check  would  be  given  to  the  raising  of  wheat, 
for  which  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  are  especially  well  adapted. 
Of  course  an  industry  naturally  tends  to  settle  in  a  region  favor- 
able to  its  development,  and  this  seems  to  take  place  without 
very  much  conscious  study  or  planning  on  the  part  of  anybody. 
But  the  way  in  which  an  industry  has  become  thus  located  is 
by  repeated  trial  and  failure  on  the  part  of  persons  whose  knowl- 
edge was  not  very  extensive  ;  there  has  been  failure  after  failure, 
which  we  do  not  hear  about,  in  finally  reaching  success. 

The  need  of  special  knowledge.  It  is  clear  enough  that  most 
of  these  failures  could  have  been  avoided  if  there  had  been  suffi- 
cient knowledge  available  concerning  the  conditions  of  an  indus- 
try so  that  it  could  have  been  rightly  located  the  first  time.  Well, 
this  is  what  science  proposes  to  do  —  so  thoroughly  to  investigate 
the  conditions  surrounding  each  industry  that  there  may  not  be 
a  loss  of  time  and  effort  in  finding  out  by  sad  experience.  It  is 
a  question  of  using  foresight  instead  of  hindsight. 

The  margin  of  superiority.  In  the  modern  world  the  cost  of 
trial  and  failure  is  much  higher  than  it  used  to  be.  There  are 
so  many  competitors  in  the  field  that  often  a  small  margin  of 
superiority  is  what  determines  the  question  of  success  or  nonsuc- 
cess.  It  takes  only  a  slight  superiority  to  win  and  only  a  slight 
inferiority  to  Uxse.  The  whole  situation  is  like  that  of  a  foot  race: 
if  there  are  only  a  few  competitors  the  victor  is  likely  to  win 
easily  and  by  a  good  margin  ;  but  if  there  are  thousands  entered 


3vS  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADF, 

in  the  race,  there  will  bo  man\  bunched  at  the  finish  and  the 
victor  will  be  likely  to  win  by  a  very  slight  margin.  Now  the 
application  of  study  and  science  to  industry  has  been  necessary 
in  order  to  secure  that  margin  over  near  competitors.  All  the 
conditions  surrounding  a  business  are  carefully  figured  out  —  the 
location,  physical  situation,  nearness  to  raw  material,  nearness  to 
markets,  availability  of  labor  supply,  and  so  on  indefinitely. 

Expert  majiagement.  In  addition,  the  matter  of  management 
has  been  reduced  to  a  science,  and  there  are  experts  who  instruct 
the  owners  of  industries  in  methods  of  accounting  and  other 
scientific  devices  whose  application  has  appeared  only  in  the  most 
recent  years.  Scientific  study  of  the  industrial  situation  leads  also 
to  the  decision  not  to  carry  on  certain  industries  to  which  the 
country  or  locality  in  question  is  not  well  adapted.  The  estab- 
lishment of  certain  industries  within  a  country,  if  the  costs  of 
production  in  that  country  are  heavier  than  those  in  competing 
countries,  is  a  bad  business  proposition  ;  yet,  in  the  days  before 
the  study  of  these  matters  had  become  a  science,  countries  at- 
tempted over  and  over  again  to  develop  industries  to  which  they 
were  thus  unfitted.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  various  countries 
apply  themselves  to  industries  to  which  they  are  "fitted,  and  then 
trade  freely  with  other  countries  adapted  to  the  production  of 
other  articles,  the  whole  group  of  producers  is  thereby  benefited, 
for  each  is  securing  the  highest  profit  from  its  efforts.  Taking 
the  great  industrial  countries  of  the  world  into  consideration, 
there  is  in  the  twentieth  century  a  much  better  adaptation  of 
industry  to  conditions  than  existed  a  few  decades  ago,  together 
with  a  much  wider  prevalence  of  scientific  management  than  at 
any  other  period  of  the  world's  history. 

Government  action  —  British.  In  later  years  it  has  also  become 
the  common  mode  for  the  government  to  oversee  all  the  indus- 
tries of  a  country  and  try  to  render  them  encouragement  and  sup- 
port by  the  diffusion  of  scientific  information  and  advice,  and 
even  by  direct  control.  The  English  business  man  of  a  former 
age  was  largely  unaided  by  his   government,  and  the   English 


INDUSTRIAL  AND  COMMERCIAL  SUPREMACY     359 

method  of  trading  abroad  has  been  described  as  "  every  man  for 
himself."  But  in  more  recent  times,  fearing  the  organized  com- 
petition of  Germany  and  America,  the  EngHsh  government  has 
come  in  various  ways  to  the  rescue.  The  consular  service,  the 
Board  of  Trade  (notably  through  its  Intelligence  Bureau),  the 
wider  British  Trade  Commission,  the  British  Imperial  Council 
of  Commerce  —  all  these  agencies,  whose  functions  we  cannot 
describe  here,  are  engaged  in  investigating  the  industrial  and 
commercial  questions  and  conditions,  at  home  and  throughout 
the  world,  which  must  be  scientifically  solved  or  met  in  order  to 
retain  the  supremacy  of  the  past. 

Government  action  —  German.  The  Germans  have  been  almost 
the  opposite  of  the  British,  for  their  system  has  been  typically 
paternal ;  the  promotion  of  foreign  commerce  has  been  carried 
on  in  a  thoroughly  practical  and  systematic  manner,  but  always 
with  close  cooperation  between  the  government  and  the  business 
interests.  There  has  been  an  Imperial  Department  of  Commerce 
and  an  Imperial  Consultative  Board  for  the  Elaboration  of  Com- 
mercial Measures  ;  the  German  consulates  have  generally  been 
occupied  by  experts  of  various  kinds,  including  commercial,  for- 
estry, and  agricultural  experts  ;  immense  amounts  of  literature, 
containing  carefully  collected  and  sifted  information,  have  been 
widely  distributed  to  those  engaged  in  foreign  commerce  ;  railroad 
rates  have  been  manipulated  to  favor  the  export  trade  ;  the  bank- 
ing system  has  been  adapted  to  the  same  end  —  in  fact,  Germany 
has  applied  to  commercial  competition  all  the  science  she  had. 
These  facts  concerning  the  British  and  German  methods  give 
us  some  idea  of  the  prow'css  of  our  rivals  for  the  world's 'trade. 

Growth  of  American  interest  in  foreign  commerce.  In  this 
country  but  little  attention  was  given  until  recently  to  the  develop- 
ment of  foreign  commerce.  Our  tremendous  home  market,  right 
before  our  eyes,  shut  out  the  view  of  the  foreign  market.  But 
of  late  our  industries  have  somewhat  outgrown  the  former,  and 
we  have  been  forced  to  look  abroad  and  to  enter  the  lists  as  com- 
petitors for  the  world's  trade.    Within  the  last  half  century,  as 


36o  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

preceding  chapters  have  shown,  our  industries  have  exhibited  an 
enormous  growth  and  our  foreign  trade  has  increased  to  large 
size.  Likewise  this  trade  has  shown  a  notable  change.  Formerly 
our  leading  exports,  for  which  there  was  a  ready  market  in  Europe, 
were  agricultural  and  other  raw  {products,  notably  cereals  and 
cotton.  Here  we  had  very  little  competition.  But  at  present  our 
exports  of  manufactures  have  come  to  form  about  half  of  our  total 
exports,  as  against  one  fifth  twenty-five  years  ago ;  and  in  dis- 
posing of  these  abroad  the  American  merchant  has  met  the  keen 
competition  of  Europeans,  who  were  seasoned  traders  long  before 
we  entered  the  world's  market  at  all. 

Government  action  —  American.  This  new  situation  has  forced 
us  to  organize  our  trade  along  modern  scientific  lines.  Among 
other  things  we  have  reformed  the  consular  service  —  a  service 
which  is  a  well-recognized  factor  in  trade  extension.  There  was 
a  time  when  the  consul  was  not  thought  of  as  a  commercial  helper, 
but  now  he  devotes  much  of  his  effort  to  smoothing  the  way  for 
American  salesmen  by  minimizing  prejudices  and  maintaining 
cordial  relations  between  American  and  other  nationalities.  Daily 
reports  are  issued  by  the  government  which  contain  all  sorts  of 
information  valuable  to  the  trader.  When  our  business  men  real- 
ized the  great  advantages  derived  by  other  nations  from  their 
consular  service,  and  became  aware  that  the  American  service 
contained  many  poor  and  inefficient  consuls  and  so  was  not  in 
good  standing,  they  clamored  for  its  reform,  and  finally  got  it  in 
1906.  The  system,  which  had  been  "in  politics,"  was  removed 
from  that  predicament,  and  the  quality  of  the  consuls  was  much 
impro\''ed.  Entrance  to  the  service  was  made  through  a  rigid 
examination,  many  of  the  subjects  of  which  bear  directly  upon 
commerce  and  practical  business.  The  merit  system  for  promo- 
tion was  put  into  effect,  so  that  we  now  have  a  reputable  con- 
sular service  capable  of  rendering  powerful  aid  in  securing  foreign 
trade.  The  Department  of  Commerce  has  been  separated  from 
the  Department  of  Labor  and  includes  an  effective  Bureau  of 
Foreign  and  Domestic  Commerce. 


INDUSTRIAL  AND  COMMERCIAL  SUPREMACY     361 

Business  men's  organizations.  Within  recent  years,  also,  nu- 
merous business  men's  organizations,  both  local  and  national, 
have  been  working  on  the  enlargement  of  our  markets  ;  it  is  real- 
ized that  there  are  many  problems  of  policy  that  are  worthy  of 
united  effort.  The  National  Association  of  Manufacturers,  organ- 
ized in  1895,  has  built  up  a  foreign  department  which  covers 
practically  all  aspects  of  the  export  business.  A  younger  bod)',  with 
somewhat  the  same  purposes,  is  the  American  Manufacturers' 
Export  Association  ;  and  another  important  trade-promoter  is  the 
Foreign  Trade  Bureau  of  the  Philadelphia  Commercial  Museum. 

The  national  Chamber  of  Commerce.  The  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce of  the  United  States  of  America  came  into  existence  in 
191 2.  It  is  not  a  government  organization,  but  was  created  to 
serve  as  a  connecting  link  between  the  Federal  government  and 
the  American  business  world.  Its  three  important  functions  are 
(I)  that  it  acts  as  a  national  clearing  house  for  business  opinion 
and  business  methods ;  (2)  that  it  furnishes  close  relationship 
between  the  public  and  the  national  government ;  (3)  that  it 
tests  the  business  sentiment  of  the  country  from  time  to  time 
by  a  referendum  vote.  Through  this  referendum  it  is  able  to 
take  the  pulse  of  the  American  business  world  when  commercial 
or  business  legislation  is  pending,  so  that  Congress  may  be 
enlightened  as  to  the  appropriateness  of  the  legislation. 

The  need  of  efficiency.  These  arc  illustrations  of  what  is  meant 
by  the  scientific  promotion  of  industry  and  trade.  They  are,  of 
course,  only  the  most  important  of  many  enterprises  launched 
with  that  end  in  view.  As  the  world  grows  older  and  there  are 
more  people  who  must  live  from  its  resources,  it  is  necessary  that 
more  and  more  knowledge  shall  be  gathered  and  disseminated, 
so  that  the  most  successful  methods  may  be  employed.  Once 
producers  and  exchangers  managed  to  get  on  with  rule-of-thumb 
methods  derived  from  a  process  of  trial  and  failure,  but  now  the 
question  of  living  has  become  so  much  more  pressing  and  com- 
plicated that  it  will  not  do  to  be  content  with  anything  less  than 
the  most  thorough  knowledge  and  efficiency. 


f 


CHAPTER   XXXI 

MARKETING 

The  feeling  that  "  industry  "  means  "  production."  When  we 
speak  of  American  industries  we  almost  always  have  in  mind 
productive  industries  such  as  we  have  been  studying  in  former 
chapters  of  this  book.  We  even  feel  that  transportation  is  not 
really  an  industry  until  we  realize  what  an  enormous  amount  of 
capital  is  invested  in  transportation  systems  and  to  what  multi- 
tudes of  human  beings  these  give  employment.  There  is  good 
reason  for  this  feeling  that  the  word  "  industry"  is  always  to  be 
connected  with  production.    Let  us  look  into  this  matter  first  of  all. 

Attention  has  been  centered  on  production.  Throughout  most 
of  the  earlier  history  of  the  race  the  attention  of  people  has  been 
centered  upon  the  production  of  goods  rather  than  upon  any  other 
activity  exerted  in  connection  with  them.  For  before  anything 
else  could  be  done  with  goods  they  had  to  be  produced  by  the 
labor  of  man.  Therefore  the  organizing  ability  of  the  race  con- 
centrated itself  there  where  its  greatest  interest  and  need  lay.  The 
problems  of  production  were  the  ones  which  seemed  most  press- 
ing, and  the  man  who  improved  methods  of  agriculture  or  manu- 
facture was  the  one  who  reaped  the  great  reward.  The  manager 
of  industry  was  engaged  in  producing  more  goods  at  lower  cost, 
and,  with  the  constantly  widening  market,  the  matter  of  selling 
was  simple  and  called  for  less  concentration  of  effort  and  attention. 

No  colonial  problems  of  marketing.  This  was  true  in  the  early 
colonial  times,  when  each  family,  village,  or  town  was  more  or 

362 


MARKETING 


363 


less  sufficient  unto  itself.  Where  such  self-sufficiency  was  to  be 
found,  there  were  no  great  problems  of  marketing,  for  the  exchange 
of  goods  was  almost  entirely  within  the  several  communities. 
Producers  who  found  themselves  with  a  surplus  bartered  it  for  a 
share  of  the  surplus  of  other  local  producers.    There  was  not  very 


A    FAIK    1\    I'ALESTINE 


much  specialization,  and  the  several  members  of  the  community 
managed  to  trade  among  themselves  in  an  informal  way,  often  by 
bartering  or  "swapping,"  and  without  the  formation  of  anything 
well-organized  enough  to  deserve  the  name  of  a  market. 

The  fair  as  a  market.  The  first  step  towards  a  real  market  was 
the  fair.  A  real  market  is  a  rather  permanent  relation  between 
buyers  and  sellers,  whereas  the  fair  was  at  first  an  occasional  or 
intermittent  relation  of  the  same  sort.  P^airs  were  held  among 
less  civilized  peoples  and,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  European  history, 


3<'H 


INDISIRV   AXI)    TRADK 


once  or  several  limes  a  year.  They  were  very  popular,  both 
because  they  formed  the  only  approach  to  a  large-scale  market 
for  the  trader  and  also  because  the  occasion  provided  a  chance 
for  social  intercourse  between  people  who  did  not  ordinarily 
come  into  contact,  and  thus  furnished  them  with  a  variety  of 
diversions  which  they  could  not  otherwise  enjoy.    Some  of  these 


A     I Al'lCAL    Cor.NTV    FAIR    IN    THK    UNITED   STATKS 


fairs,  even  among  the  savage  peoples,  have  been  very  large  ;  the 
fair  at  Timbuctoo  was  attended  by  a  number  of  thousands  of 
African  natives,  as  well  as  by  traders  of  other  nations. 

The  county  fair.  The  fair  was  characteristic  of  the  earlier 
history  of  a  number  of  regions  in  this  country.  It  was  generally 
known  as  the  county  fair  and  was  usually  held  at  the  county  seat, 
the  farmers  coming  in  from  the  adjacent  country  with  products  of 
all  kinds.  Prizes  were  offered  for  the  best  of  these  products,  and 
of  course  this  led  to  the  advertisement  of  the  skill  and  goods  of 


MARKETING 


365 


those  producers  whose  showing  was  most  successful.  At  these 
county  fairs,  hkewise,  there  were  all  sorts  of  rustic  entertainments, 
such  as  horse-racing,  turkey-shooting,  and  dancing ;  and  gradually 
there  drifted  to  the  fair  grounds  the  various  varieties  of  enter- 
tainers, both  respectable  and  otherwise,  who  saw  in  the  gathering 
of  population  a  chance  to  do  business.    These  county  fairs  came 


COURT  OF  HOXOR  AT  A  WORLD'S  FAn< 


to  be  not  so  much  genuine  markets  as  exhibitions  of  extraordinary 
products,  but  they  formed,  nevertheless,  a  device  looking  toward 
the  formation  of  genuine  markets. 

The  world's  fair.  The  idea  of  the  fair  has  been  expanded  into 
that  of  the  world's  fair.  Here  there  is  no  great  market  for  products, 
but  rather  a  great  advertising  device  which  aims,  as  we  shall  see, 
toward  the  development  of  markets  and  marketing. 

The  weekly  market.  Another  undeveloped  form  of  market,  but 
one  less  intermittent  than  the  fair,  was  the  so-called  weekly  market 
still  common  in  parts  of  this  country.  A  certain  day  in  the  week 
was  "  market  day."  This  day  was  often  Saturday.  During  the 
previous  night  the  farmers  from  the  surrounding  country  would 
drive  into  the  nearest  city,  back  their  wagons  up  to  the  curbstones, 


366 


INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 


set  out  a  table  in  front,  and  be  ready,  almost  before  dawn,  to  dis- 
pose of  the  produce  of  their  farms.  Customers  would  set  out  with 
a  large  "  market  basket  "  and  pass  along  the  lines  of  tables,  pur- 
chasing one  article  here  and  another  there.  The  sellers  generally 
remained  until  they  had  disposed  of  all  their  stock,  and  then  set 
out  for  home  to  assemble  another  load  for  the  next  market  day. 
In  a  number  of  the  cit- 
ies there  was  a  regular 
"  market  house,"  which 
stood  vacant  for  the  rest 
of  the  week  but  was  filled 
to  overflowing  during  the 
market  day. 

Earlier  forms  become 
antiquated.  These  illus- 
trations show  the  more 
simple  devices  which  came 
into  being  for  gathering 
the  buyers  and  sellers 
together  at  regular  inter- 
vals for  purposes  of  ex- 
change. For  a  long  time 
they  were  adequate,  and, 
as  we  have  said,  the  need 
was  rather  for  more  effi- 
cient production  than  for 
more  efficient  distribution.  The  efforts  put  in  on  production  have 
brought  about  a  productive  organization  which  has  gradually  out- 
grown the  earlier  forms  of  distribution  through  such  simple  mar- 
kets as  were  available.  The  more  production  has  increased,  and 
the  more  specialized  it  has  become,  the  more  inefficient  have 
appeared  the  simpler  means  developed  in  former  times  for  dis- 
posing of  the  product. 

Produce-marketing.    It  is  to  be  noted  that  these  earlier  devices 
had  to  do  chiefly  with  the  distribution  of  agricultural  products  as 


OXE     OF     THE     PAX-AMERICAX     EXPOSITIOX 
BUILDIXGS   ILLUMINATED   AT  NIGHT 


MARKETING 


367 


distinct  from  the  ordinary  manufactured  products.  This  distinc- 
tion is  not  ver}^  clear  in  some  cases  because  many  staple  food 
commodities,  such  as  butter,  flour,  and  meat  products,  have  under- 
gone manufacturing  processes  before  becoming  available  for  con- 
sumption ;  but  if  we  allow  for  cases  of  this  sort  we  have  a  clear 
enough  contrast  between  the  products  of  agriculture  and  those  of 


MARKET    DAY    IN    AN    A.MEKICAX   CITY 


manufacturing.  Tn  former  times  the  local  store  often  formed  a 
sort  of  connecting  link  between  agriculture  and  manufacture  in 
that  it  supplied  manufactured  ])roducts  in  return  for  those  of  agri- 
culture. In  the  earlier  days  there  was  not  very  much  money  to 
change  hands,  and  the  exchange  was  chiefly  through  barter,  or 
"  payment  in  kind." 

Rise  of  the  modern  market.  It  has  been  seen  that  the  simpler 
devices  which  wc  have  described  were  entirely  sufficient  for  the 
marketing  of  the  products  of  undeveloped  industries.    But,  as  we 


368  INDL  STRV  AND    rRADI", 

have  also  seen,  the  iJrevaiHng  interest  was  in  tlic  higher  and 
higlier  development  of  production.  This  meant  thai  production 
should  become  more  specialized  and  that  larger  amounts  of  a 
single  product  must  be  disposed  of.  It  was  not  long  before  these 
amounts  became  too  great  to  be  handled  by  the  simpler  marketing 
agencies,  and  these  gradually  passed  away  in  favor  of  the  modern 
market.  Here  is  where  the  development  of  transportation  allowed 
of  further  progress,  for  the  surpluses  of  production  which  could 
not  be  disposed  of  within  a  local  area  could  be  transported  to 
some  other  place  where  the  demand  had  not  been  satisfied. 

Expansion  of  the  market.  In  this  way  the  market  outgrew 
the  fair  and  the  village  store,  and  people  began  to  think  of  the 
marketing  of  goods  as  something  that  would  not  take  care  of  itself 
in  the  natural  course  of  things.  There  arose  a  need  of  higher 
organization  in  the  marketing  of  products,  and  this  need  has 
summoned  into  being  a  more  and  more  developed  and  compli- 
cated system  of  disposal  of  goods.  The  market  is  no  longer 
local  or  even  national ;  it  is  a  world  market.  Producers  have 
looked  farther  and  farther  from  home  for  their  customers,  until 
an  industry  located  in  the  central  part  of  this  country  relies  upon 
a  demand  for  its  products  which  exists  halfway  around  the  world. 
Thus  has  come  about  an  immense  enlargement  of  the  conception 
of  markets  and  marketing. 

The  earlier  and  simpler  conditions  of  food-distribution.  In  this 
country  public  interest  turned  first  to  the  problem  of  marketing 
farm  products.  This  was  because  of  the  fundamental  importance 
of  food,  for  if  we  look  into  the  matter  we  find  that  the  average 
workman  spends  half  or  more  of  his  wages  for  food.  Also  there 
was  a  feeling  among  the  farmers  that  they  w^ere  not  getting  a  high 
enough  price  for  their  goods  on  the  farm,  and  in  spite  of  the 
lack  of  cooperation  among  farmers  in  securing  their  interests, 
their  influence  was  important  because  of  their  great  numbers. 
Roughly  speaking,  a  third  of  the  labor  force  of  the  country  is 
still  engaged  in  agriculture ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  market- 
ing of  farm  products  in  a  country  like  this  should  occupy  the 


MARKETING  369 

foreground.  In  the  older  days  the  farmer  was  near  enough  to 
the  final  consumer  of  his  products  so  that  there  was  no  great 
difference  between  the  price  received  by  him  and  the  one  that 
the  consumer  paid  ;  the  profits  of  the  middleman  were  likely  to 
be  moderate. 

Concentration  of  population.  But  when  a  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  population  became  concentrated  in  large  cities,  and 
the  development  of  specialization  in  agriculture  made  it  necessary 
for  surpluses  to  be  disposed  of  at  greater  distances,  the  farmers 
became  discontented  with  the  wide  differences  which  existed  be- 
tween the  prices  paid  to  them  at  the  farm  and  the  prices  which, 
as  they  learned,  were  paid  for  their  products  in  the  distant  cities. 
The  whole  matter  of  distribution  of  farm  products  was  made 
more  complex  when  perishable  products,  which  ripened  first  in 
one  section  of  the  country,  then  in  another,  had  to  be  trans- 
ported over  great  distances  and  sold  in  competition  with  products 
from  various  other  regions.  There  has  arisen,  therefore,  among 
the  agricultural  population  a  feeling  that  somehow  they  are  being 
cheated  out  of  their  dues.  Very  likely  they  have  been,  on  many 
occasions ;  but  the  situation  was  inevitable.  There  had  to  be 
intervening  stages  and  intervening  men  —  middlemen  —  between 
the  farmer  and  the  consumer,  and  this  meant  a  widening  differ- 
ence between  the  farm  price  and  the  city  price. 

Growing  complexities.  In  addition  to  the  problem  of  marketing 
agricultural  products,  a  very  complicated  situation  is  presented 
in  a  country  as  large  as  ours,  with  a  ]X)pulation  of  over  100,000,000 
people  who  show  wide  extremes  of  purchasing-power.  Some  are 
able  to  buy  only  the  barest  necessities  of  life,  while  others  con- 
sume an  almost  unlimited  supply  of  the  highest-priced  goods. 
I^etwecn  these  two  extremes  lies  the  great  bulk  of  population, 
whose  purchasing-power  is  now  greater  and  now  less.  It  is  clear 
that  business  has  grown  too  big  for  either  agricultural  or  manu- 
factured goods  to  be  produced  by  individual  order ;  they  must  be 
turned  out  in  large  quantities  far  in  advance  of  their  final  con- 
sumption.    In  some  instances  a  few  manufacturing  plants  turn 


370  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

out  millions  of  articles  which  are  exactly  alike,  and  they  must 
be  distributed  eventually  among  our  great  consuming  population. 
It  is  plain  that  there  are  large  problems  involved  in  getting  manu- 
factured products  into  the  hands  of  the  final  consumer  without 
incurring  an  extraordinary  amount  of  expense,  time,  or  waste. 

Enforced  complexity  of  the  distributing  system.  The  result  is 
that  the  di.stribulion  of  food  and  raw  products  is  now  accom- 
plished by  an  elaborate  organization  of  local  dealers,  middlemen, 
cooperative  associations,  produce  exchanges,  warehouses,  elevators, 
cold-storage  plants,  and  public  markets.  Also  the  tremendous 
output  of  our  manufacturing  plants  must  be  disposed  of  through 
a  long  line  of  jobbers,  wholesale  and  retail  dealers,  general  stores, 
direct  selling,  and  advertising.  A  study  of  the  historic  develop- 
ment of  any  one  of  these  organizations  or  parts  of  them  would 
show  that  they  have  passed  through  various  phases  of  develop- 
ment as  they  became  better  adapted  to  the  general  needs  of  the 
situation.  But  it  is  commonly  admitted  that  in  this  country  the 
marketing  of  goods  is  that  part  of  our  business  organization  which 
shows  the  least  efficiency  at  the  present  time,  and  in  all  proba- 
bility great  changes  in  methods  of  marketing  both  raw  materials 
and  finished  products  are  due  in  the  near  future.  Let  us  look  at 
some  of  the  various  methods  that  have  been  worked  out  for  the 
marketing  of  goods. 

The  three  stages  of  marketing.  There  are  three  stages  of 
marketing  which  may  be  distinguished  :  the  earlier  sales  were 
made  in  bulk  ;  later  on  they  were  made  by  sample  ;  and  in  most 
recent  times  they  are  made  chiefly  by  description.  In  the  first 
case,  before  the  purchaser  bought  anything  he  always  saw  the 
exact  goods  which  he  was  purchasing.  In  the  second  case,  when 
goods  came  to  be  better  standardized  he  bought  without  seeing 
the  articles,  but  in  reliance  upon  the  good  faith  of  the  seller  as  a 
guarantee  that  the  deliveries  would  not  be  inferior  to  the  sample. 
It  was  the  introduction  of  machine  methods  in  industry,  w'hereby 
large  quantities  of  a  standardized  product  could  be  turned  out  in 
a  short  time,  that  gave  the  stimulus  to  the  development  of  sales 


MARKETING  37 1 

by  sample.  It  is  plain  that  more  had  to  be  taken  on  trust  in 
the  second  form  than  in  the  first ;  and  when  goods  came  to  be 
sold  by  description,  there  was  assumed  an  even  higher  standard 
of  honesty  and  also  a  higher  level  of  general  intelligence  on 
the  part  of  purchasers.  Sale  by  description  is,  of  course,  one 
of  the  many  developments  which  have  been  rendered  possible 
by  the  printing  press. 

Sale  by  description.  Sale  by  description  is  the  typical  modern 
method.  There  are  certain  products  which  do  not  naturally  come 
under  this  form.  For  instance,  live  stock  cannot  well  be  sold  in 
that  manner,  and  most  perishable  fruits  and  vegetables  must  be 
looked  over  to  see  what  condition  they  are  in  before  purchase. 
Some  products,  potatoes,  for  example,  are  apt  to  vary  so  greatly 
in  quality  and  size  that  they  cannot  well  be  bought  even  by 
sample,  for  uniformity  in  quality  and  size  are  essential  to  suc- 
cessful sample  selling.  On  the  other  hand,  apples  and  many 
other  fruits  are  now  sorted  and  packed  in  a  standard  way,  so  that 
one  barrel  is  an  index  of  what  the  whole  lot  is  like.  One  of  the 
best  examples  of  a  commodity  which  lends  itself  to  selling  by 
sample  is  grain,  because  grain  runs  rather  uniform  in  quality. 
The  selling  of  goods  by  description  rather  than  by  the  other 
methods  lends  itself  better  to  manufactured  goods  than  to  farm 
products.  Perhaps  the  typical  form  of  selling  by  description  is 
shown  by  the  great  mail-order  houses ;  their  vast  catalogues,  issued 
at  a  great  cost,  are  really  textbooks  of  sale  by  description. 

Combinations  of  methods.  When  goods  are  sold  in  bulk  the 
intervention  of  the  middleman  is  not  a  necessity,  but  when 
the  sample  method  is  in  vogue  the  sales  are  actually  made 
by  middlemen  or  salesmen,  while  in  case  of  the  disposal  by 
description  the  chief  resort  is  advertising,  although  middlemen 
and  salesmen  may  be  used.  All  sorts  of  combinations  of  methods 
and  agencies  for  selling  occur,  and  this  makes  the  problems  of 
marketing  very  complex.  What  the  dealer  has  to  do  is  to  work 
out  such  combination  of  methods  and  agency  as  will  give  him 
the  most  efficient  system  of  distribution,  or  marketing. 


:>/  ~ 


INDUS  IKV   AND    TRADK 


The  middleman.  lUit,  it  will  be  noted,  the  development  of  the 
productive  industries  has  had  as  a  result  the  development  of  a 
new  profession,  that  of  middleman.  More  and  more  of  these 
specialists  have  been  introduced  between  the  producer  and  the 
consumer,  and  they  have  secured  a  position  of  dominance  over 
both  of  the  original  parties.  The  middleman  is  in  a  position 
to  squeeze  the  producer  and  to  impose  upon  the  consumer, 
lience  there  has  been  a  tendency  in  recent  years  toward  more 
direct  methods  of  selling ;  that  is,  toward  the  reduction  of  the 
number  and  power  of  the  middlemen.  However,  the  function 
of  the  middleman  is  a  necessary  one,  and  he  deserves  what  he 
gets  so  long  as  he  does  not  abuse  his  position.  He  shares  a  risk 
on  goods,  helps  to  finance  the  enterprise,  and  actually  sells  the 
products.  The  middleman  was  originally  a  necessary  and  a  good 
development ;  it  is  thought  by  some  that  he  has  come  to  be  an 
unnecessary  evil  ;  the  hopeful  view  is  that,  if  competently  con- 
trolled, he  may  retain  or  resume  his  position  as  a  recognized 
and  serviceable  factor  in  economic  life. 

Need  of  knowledge  and  efficiency.  The  foregoing  paragraphs 
should  give  the  student  some  idea  of  the  complexity  of  the  market- 
ing situation,  as  well  as  of  the  importance  of  having  a  well-knit 
and  efficient  agency  operating  between  the  producer  and  the  con- 
sumer. The  inevitable  extension  of  the  market  created  a  situation 
never  before  experienced  by  human  beings,  and  they  were  obliged 
to  develop  an  organization  to  deal  with  it.  This  organization  grew 
up  without  anyone  having  given  it  great  study  or  other  attention, 
and  has  discharged  its  purpose  with  considerable  efficiency.  But 
its  very  faults  have  combined  to  serve  notice  on  the  world  that 
the  matter  of  the  marketing  of  goods  is  one  important  and  com- 
plex enough  to  demand  the  best  possible  brains  of  the  race  for 
its  study  and  solution. 

The  marketing  of  exports.  What  we  have  said  above  has  had 
reference  chiefly  to  domestic  conditions  ;  but  if  we  consider  the 
matter  of  export  trade,  still  wider  marketing  problems  arise.  These 
are  connected  rather  more  with  the  disposal  of  manufactures  than 


MARKETING  373 

with  the  sale  of  foods  and  raw  materials  ;  for  while  the  latter 
presents  very  important  marketing  problems,  the  competition  in 
the  markets  for  manufactured  products  is  somewhat  keener  than 
in  the  markets  for  foodstuffs  and  raw-  materials.  In  order  that 
our  manufacturers  and  exporters  may  gain  control  of  the  market 
for  certain  lines  of  manufacture,  the  most  scientific  of  business 
methods  must  be  employed  ;  the  foreign  department  of  a  busi- 
ness will  not  look  after  itself,  but  demands  the  most  constant 
attention  and  the  most  efficient  organization. 

Direct  and  indirect  sale.  The  American  manufacturer  may  sell 
his  product  in  the  foreign  field  either  directly  or  indirectly.  By 
direct  selling  we  mean  that  he  may,  for  example,  make  larger  or 
smaller  sales  abroad  merely  by  advertising  his  goods  ;  or,  again, 
he  may  sell  his  goods  directly  to  the  foreigner  through  salesmen 
of  his  own.  The  manufacturer  who  makes  use  of  the  method  of 
direct  selling  employs  no  one  outside  of  his  own  firm.  He  may 
rely  upon  his  banker  and  upon  some  forwarding  agent,  but  the 
actual  marketing  is  done  by  the  establishment  itself.  In  some 
cases  the  American  manufacturer  gets  better  results  by  indirect 
selling,  that  is,  by  disposing  of  his  goods  through  a  commission 
house  or  through  some  export  agency.  This  method  of  selling 
indirectly  rather  than  by  establishing  his  own  ex))ort  department 
means  that  the  merchant  must  exercise  a  good  deal  of  supervision 
over  the  professional  exporters. 

Marketing  through  branch  corporations.  The  ver\'  largest  in- 
dustrial concerns  in  this  country  have  gone  so  far  as  to  create 
branch  corporations  to  take  charge  of  their  foreign  business. 
Thus,  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  has  sucii  a  branch 
concern,  known  as  the  United  States  Steel  Products  Company, 
and  the  United  States  Rubber  Company  has  tlic  United  States 
Rubber  I'^xport  Company. 

Forwarding  agencies.  Whether  the  selling  is  direct  or  indirect, 
goods  are  actually  forwarded  by  forwarding  agents,  who  are  spe- 
cialists. For  example,  our  express  companies  are  able  to  make 
out  a  bill  of  lading  from  the  point  of  shipment  to  a  destination 


374  1N1)IS1R\-   AM)    IKADE 

at  almost  any  other  point  in  the  world.  They  are  aceustomed  to 
assemble  a  number  of  small  consignments  from  various  sources, 
list  them  upon  a  single  bill  of  lading,  carry  them  to  some  foreign 
port,  where  they  are  entered  through  the  customs  by  the  forward- 
ing agents,  and  then  sort  and  dispatch  them  to  their  respective 
destinations.  This  is  a  great  economy,  for  it  saves  freight  charges 
by  taking  advantage  of  through  rates  and  minimizes  expenses 
and  trouble  in  both  port  of  clearance  and  port  of  discharge. 

Meeting  the  tastes  of  foreign  consumers.  Of  course  this  is 
only  a  part,  though  an  important  one,  of  the  organization  for 
securing  foreign  markets.  The  successful  and  continuous  selling 
of  goods  abroad  is  a  product  of  many  factors.  Export  merchants 
and  manufacturers  must  study  every  detail  of  the  foreign  business 
as  a  unit  by  itself.  For  example,  goods  must  be  made  differently 
for  different  markets ;  we  cannot  impress  our  own  styles  and 
tastes  upon  the  South  Americans  or  the  Orientals.  We  have  been 
too  self-sufficient  in  that  matter  and  have  acquainted  ourselves  too 
tardily  with  the  racial  differences  and  varying  social  customs  of 
foreign  peoples  with  whom  we  wish  to  trade.  We  must  produce 
things,  and  even  put  them  up,  in  such  forms  as  our  customers 
want  them,  not  as  we  think  they  should  have  them.  They  have  as 
little  sympathy,  or  as  much  contempt,  for  our  styles  and  fashions  as 
we  could  have  for  theirs. 

Dangers  of  self-sufficiency.  It  is  always  the  prime  function  of 
the  trader  to  please  his  customer,  and  particularly  to  avoid  tread- 
ing upon  any  of  his  prejudices,  ridiculous  though  they  may  seem. 
This  is  a  very  simple  and  obvious  principle,  but  it  has  taken 
every  great  trading  people  some  time  to  learn  and  apply  it.  It 
is  the  conviction  of  every  nation  that  its  own  ways  are  right  and 
expedient  and  that  other  peoples  who  differ  with  them  must,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  be  wrong.  So  long  as  we  have  no  favors  to 
ask  of  the  rest  of  the  world  we  may  not  suffer  from  preserving 
this  narrowness  of  mind,  but  if  we  actually  mean  to  conquer  our 
share  of  the  world  market,  the  sooner  we  give  up  our  intolerance 
the  better. 


EC 


ti^^__ 


CHAPTER    XXXII 

THE  FINANCING  OF  INDUSTRY  AND  THE  DEVELOPMENT 
OF  CORPORATIONS 

The  importance  of  capital.  In  preceding  chapters  we  have  seen 
the  importance  to  industry  of  an  adequate  labor  supply,  especially 
if  it  is  of  high  quality,  and  we  shall  consider  that  matter  further 
in  the  following  chapter.  But  there  is  another  element  of  the 
highest  significance  for  the  destiny  of  a  country's  industrial  life, 
and  that  is  capital.  It  is  perfectly  fair  to  say  that  the  whole  struc- 
ture of  material  civilization  rests  upon  labor  and  capital,  and  no 
less  upon  the  latter  than  upon  the  former.  If  we  were  to  sketch 
the  growth  of  the  industrial  organization  from  its  simplest  and 
most  primitive  forms  up  to  those  of  the  present  day,  we  should 
find  that  every  considerable  advance  that  had  been  made  depended 
upon  the  presence  and  utilization  of  capital. 

Scarcity  of  capital  in  new  countries.  In  every  new  country 
capital  is  scarce.  It  takes  a  good  while  to  develop  a  surplus  of 
capital  sufficient  for  embarkation  upon  industries  much  in  advance 
of  agriculture.  The  American  colonists  brought  some  capital  with 
them  in  the  form  of  seeds,  goods,  domestic  animals,  and  other 
directly  useful  possessions,  but  for  a  long  time  wealth  accumulated 
so  slowly  that  industrial  development  financed  with  American  capi- 
tal was  almost  out  of  the  question.  As  a  matter  of  fact  early 
colonial  enterprises  were  financed  very  largely  with  English  funds. 

Colonial  capital.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  colonists  were 
substantially  equal   in   the  matter  of  property.     There  were  few 

375 


376  INDUSTRY  AM)    IRADE 

of  the  very  woalthv,  as  of  the  very  poor.  People  worked  for  the 
most  part  in  occupations  that  did  not  demand  a  heavy  capitahstic 
endowment,  and  the  colonists  were  so  conservative  that  they  were 
very  slow  about  putting  their  scanty  savings  into  the  development 
of  new  and  untried  industries.  In  some  of  the  Eastern  cities  on 
the  seaboard,  especially  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia, 
certain  successful  traders  and  shippers  were  able  to  accumulate 
a  surplus,  but  they  were  more  interested  in  commerce  than  in 
manufactures,  so  that  their  spare  funds  did  not  ordinarily  go  into 
the  building  up  of  the  latter. 

Growth  of  American  capital.  In  the  seventeenth  century  ac- 
cumulations became  greater,  and  there  are  reported  to  have  been 
in  1680  about  thirty  IMassachusetts  merchants  worth  between 
550,000  and  Si 00,000,  whereas  an  earlier  generation  considered 
$22,000  to  be  a  great  estate.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the 
process  of  accumulation  went  on  rather  rapidly,  especially  in 
Pennsylvania ;  Philadelphia  money  supported  ironworks  and 
other  manufactures  as  far  south  as  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas. 
Men  who  had  acquired  their  fortunes  by  manufacturing  became 
supporters  of  sound  undertakings  and  critics  of  unpromising 
ventures. 

Forms  of  colonial  investment.  However,  foreign  capital  was 
generally  behind  the  leading  colonial  manufacturing  plants.  After 
the  colonists  began  to  invest,  it  was  generally  in  enterprises  where 
manufacturing  and  commerce  were  combined  ;  in  fact,  since  many 
manufacturing  concerns  marketed  their  own  products,  these  two 
forms  of  enterprise,  production  and  marketing,  generally  went 
hand  in  hand  and  were  commonly  managed  directly  by  one  man 
or  one  concern.  The  corporation  was  a  product  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Post-Revolution  conditions.  Only  a  relatively  small  amount  of 
the  total  capital  engaged  in  manufacture  was  sunk  in  building 
and  machiner)^ ;  it  was  employed  largely  in  operating  the  plant, 
being  necessary  on  account  of  tardy  transportation  and  long  cor- 
respondence, which  delayed  returns  from  sales.    Not  until  after 


THE  FINANCING  OF  INDUSTRY  377 

the  Revolution  did  conditions  begin  to  shape  themselves  so  as  to 
favor  the  development  of  new  industrial  enterprises.  About  that 
time  banking  and  credit  facilities  were  much  improved,  and  the 
rapid  expansion  of  American  commerce  caused  a  speedy  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  Americans  engaged  in  shipping. 
Commercial  capital  soon  became  greater  in  proportion  to  popu- 
lation than  e\'er  before. 

The  small  demand  for  capital.  In  the  earlier  days,  when  a  man 
put  his  money  into  a  concern,  he  had  usually  been  able  to  inform 
himself  by  direct  examination  concerning  the  nature  and  prospects 
of  the  industry,  and  very  frequently  knew  a  good  deal  about  run- 
ning it  from  having  been  connected  with  it.  The  case  was  quite 
different  from  what  it  is  at  present,  when  people  buy  stock  in  a 
corporation  and  hope  that  those  who  have  charge  will  manage  its 
affairs  so  as  to  pay  dividends.  There  were  at  that  time  no  large 
private  fortunes  to  be  drawn  upon  ;  in  fact,  there  was  not  yet  a 
great  mass  of  floating  capital  which  could  be  relied  upon  for  the 
development  of  new  projects.  We  find  that  many  early  industrial 
plants  were  established  and  expanded  by  enterprising  individuals 
who  had  faith  in  the  development  of  the  industry.  It  took  little 
capital  to  set  up  a  water-power  mill,  and  if  it  was  successful  the 
earnings  of  the  owner  and  the  savings  of  the  few  operatives  often 
furnished  all  the  capital  needed  for  expanding  the  business. 
Thus  did  the  small  mill  develop  into  a  large  factory.  Tarmers 
and  other  neighbors  came  in  with  contributions  of  land  and  mill- 
sites,  and  often  with  personal  labor.  From  these  informal  partner- 
ships or  associations  arose  the  early  joint-stock  companies,  out 
of  which  grew  the  small  corporations  characteristic  especially  of 
New  England. 

Government  enterprises,  l^ut  the  lack  of  capital  remained 
a  serious  drawback  to  the  development  of  manufacture.  It  was 
even  suggested  that  several  millions  of  dollars  be  set  aside  by 
the  government  to  loan  to  manufacturers  at  a  low  rate  of  interest. 
The  separate  states  embarked  in  industrial  enterprises,  especially 
in    connection    with    transportation    and    banking.     'I'he    l-'ederal 


378  IM'l  >l  1<\     \M»    I  KADI-: 

government  itself  built  the  Cumberland  Road.  And  so  it  was 
that  during  the  first  three  or  four  decades  of  the  last  century 
our  governments,  both  T^ederal  and  state,  were  financially  inter- 
ested in  some  of  the  most  important  industrial  enterprises  of 
the  country. 

The  call  for  capital.  The  introduction  of  the  steamboat  on 
Western  waters  and  the  spread  of  cotton  culture  into  the  South- 
west started  a  rush  of  material  development,  which  called  for  a 
large  amount  of  capital,  particularly  in  connection  with  transporta- 
tion works.  Canals  and  turnpikes  represented  undertakings  of  a 
size  scarcely  imagined  by  the  preceding  generation.  The  capi- 
tal required  was  derived  in  part  from  the  savings  of  Americans 
and  in  part  from  abroad.  There  had  been  a  good  deal  of  accu- 
mulation, especially  in  the  East  and  South  ;  but  foreigners,  espe- 
cially Englishmen,  had,  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  large  sums  of  money  to  lend,  and  the  United  States 
formed  an  attractive  field  for  investment.  Up  to  the  middle  of 
the  forties  England  seems  to  have  had  in  her  own  industries 
no  adequate  field  for  the  employment  of  all  her  capital,  and  she 
invested  ver}-  large  sums  in  this  country. 

The  beginnings  of  the  corporation.  Corporations  were  not 
unknown  before  1850;  they  appeared  as  soon  as  industries  grew 
to  a  point  where  they  demanded  more  capital  than  could  be 
supplied  by  a  single  individual  or  by  a  partnership.  But  cor- 
porations were  not  able  to  raise  millions  without  the  backing  of 
the  government ;  there  were  no  big  banking  houses  to  under- 
write securities  and  to  insure  the  successful  floating  of  new 
corporations.  And  so  the  governments  of  this  country,  instead 
of  guaranteeing  the  interest  on  bonds  of  corporations,  undertook 
to  embark  in  the  industries  themselves,  and  government-owned 
enterprises  developed  on  a  large  scale.  It  was  with  the  failure 
of  many  of  these  that  the  states  withdrew  and  left  the  field  free 
for  the  modern  form  of  development.  However,  it  should  not 
be  understood  that  the  states  entered  much  into  manufacturing ; 
for  some  time  that  form  of  development  was  exceedingly  slow  as 


THE  FINANCING  OF  INDUSTRY  379 

compared  with  its  pace  after  the  Civil  War.  Manufacturing 
plants  that  had  been  owned  chiefly  by  individuals  or  partners 
were  unincorporated  joint-stock  companies  ;  it  wg^  in  the  cotton 
manufacture  that  corporate  organization  very  soon  became  com- 
mon, and  then  the  corporations  spread  into  other  lines  of  textile 
manufacture  and  into  the  iron  industry. 

Nature  of  the  corporation.  It  is  characteristic  of  a  corporation 
that  it  exhibits  (i)  an  artificial  personality;  (2)  joint  association 
in  ownership ;  (3)  limited  liability  of  stockholders.  The  first 
point  marks  its  distinction  from  ownership  by  an  individual  or 
by  several  individuals,  and  the  third  means  that  stockholders  are 
responsible  for  the  obligations  of  the  corporation  only  in  pro- 
portion to  the  number  of  shares  which  they  hold,  whereas  in  a 
partnership  with  unlimited  liability  the  part  owner  is  responsi- 
ble for  all  the  obligations  of  the  concern.  The  idea  of  limited 
responsibility  in  a  joint-stock  association  runs  back  for  four  cen- 
turies or  more,  but  the  genuine  corporation  has  come  into  promi- 
nence in  the  economic  life  of  the  world  only  within  comparatively 
recent  times. 

Conditions  favoring  the  growth  of  the  corporation.  The  busi- 
ness corporation  is  really  a  product  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  demanded  certain  industrial  and  political  changes  to  pave  its 
way.  Before  there  was  any  great  industrial  expansion  an  end 
had  to  come  to  the  conferring  of  special  privileges  by  sovereign 
power  upon  individuals,  and  there  had  to  be  a  rather  general 
triumph  of  democracy  —  changes  which  came  to  pass  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth. The  purely  industrial  changes  came  about  with  the  so- 
called  Industrial  Revolution,  which  accompanied  the  utilization 
of  steam  power  in  industry  and  transportation.  This  led  to  the 
establishment  of  industries  on  a  scale  so  large  that  their  financing 
was  beyond  the  capacity  of  an  individual  or  even  a  partnership  ; 
and  so  a  new  method  of  organizing  business  was  necessarily 
developed,  which  could  be  provided  either  by  the  state  going 
into   business   enterprises   itself  or  by  delegating   its  powers  to 


38o  LNDL'STRV   AM)    I'RADK 

corporations.  Hut  we  have  seen  that  in  this  country  the  state 
governments,  after  sad  experience,  withdrew  from  business,  and 
in  this  way  was  opened  a  field  for  the  development  of  genuine 
corporations. 

The  corporation  was  inevitable.  There  has  been  a  great  deal 
of  objection,  on  various  grounds,  to  the  corporation.  No  doubt 
there  ha\e  been  unfortunate  sides  to  its  development  and  a 
number  of  abuses,  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  leading  form 
of  industrial  organization  could  have  been  evaded.  It  has  been  like 
some  new  and  powerful  engine  which  men  have  not  understood 
very  well  and  which  has,  therefore,  caused  a  good  deal  of  suffer- 
ing and  injur}'  to  certain  parties.  But  in  such  a  case  the  only 
recourse  is  to  learn  how  to  manage  the  new  power,  not  to  discard 
it  and  try  to  carr}^  on  by  outgrown  methods  the  enormous  indus- 
trial organization  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Extension  of  the  corporation.  If  the  corporation  had  been  a 
bad  thing  in  itself,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  it  could  have  made  such 
headway  and  shown  such  results.  It  is  to-day  the  dominant  form 
of  business  organization  ;  practically  every  important  line  of  in- 
dustry considered  in  the  foregoing  chapters  is  organized  in  the 
corporate  form,  farming  being  the  most  notable  exception. 
Four  fifths  or  more  of  the  products  of  our  manufactories  are 
turned  out  by  corporations ;  and  this  is  true  despite  the  fact  that 
only  about  one  fourth  of  the  total  number  of  establishments  are 
on  the  corporate  basis.  This  means  that  there  are  numerous  small 
concerns  engaged  in  manufacturing,  but  the  corporations  employ 
three  fourths  or  more  of  the  wage-earners  employed  in  this  line. 
In  transportation  and  finance  the  corporation  occupies  a  leading 
place.  There  were  on  a  recent  count  about  270,000  corporations 
in  this  country  whose  outstanding  stocks  and  bonds  amounted 
to  over  S88,ooo,ooo,ooo  and  whose  reported  income  was  about 
$3,860,000,000. 

Increase  in  size  of  the  business  unit.  In  preceding  chapters 
we  have  seen  that  many  of  the  industries  of  this  country  took  on 
new  life  after  the   Civil   War.    The  old   small-scale  production. 


THE  FINANCING  OF  INDUSTRY  381 

with  small  capital,  was  supplanted  by  something  more  nearly 
commensurate  with  the  expanding  development  of  our  natural 
resources.  There  appeared  not  only  the  concentrated  and  central- 
ized type  of  management  but  also  the  great  captains  of  industry ; 
the  small  independent  producer  disappeared,  and  laborers  were 
organized  into  larger  and  larger  units.  Of  course  such  com- 
bination and  concentration  would  have  been  impossible  without 
the  development  of  standardization  of  machinery  and  methods,  the 
development  of  adequate  accounting  systems,  the  invention  and 
improvement  of  the  telegraph,  telephone,  and  typewriter,  and  the 
building  and  organization  of  railroads.  The  great  expansion  of 
the  railroad  system  came,  as  we  have  seen,  after  the  Civil  War. 
This  greatly  widened  the  market  and  called  for  a  pronounced  ex- 
pansion in  the  size  of  the  business  unit.  Large  combinations  of 
capital  —  trusts,  as  they  were  commonly  called  —  came  to  dominate 
many  of  the  leading  interests  of  the  country.  These  consolida- 
tions were  few  until  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
but  from  1898  to  1903  there  was  tremendous  activity.  The  largest 
combination  of  all  —  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  —  was 
founded  in  1901,  with  a  capital  of  $1,100,000,000,  besides 
$304,000,000  in  bonds. 

Economies  of  combination.  Combination,  like  other  advances 
in  the  organization  of  industry,  was  forced  by  the  necessities  of 
the  case,  for  the  older  devices  for  managing  industry  and  trade 
had  been  outgrown.  Combination  represented  economies  of  sev- 
eral sorts  and  so  was  a  welcome  device  in  an  industrial  competi- 
tion where  every  saving  counted. 

The  wastes  of  competition.  By  the  very  fact  that  it  limited 
competition,  combination  did  away  with  the  wastes  of  competition 
and  also  rendered  possible  the  economies  connected  with  large- 
scale  production.  The  fact  that  it  aimed  at  monopoly-power  should 
not  blind  us  to  these  facts.  The  main  wastes  of  competition  have 
to  do  with  duplication  of  expenses  in  advertising  and  in  paying 
salesmen  and  also  with  the  uneconomical  use  of  plants.  In  re- 
gard to  the  last  point,  plants  are  most  economically  run  when  their 


382  INDUSTRY  AND    IKADE 

management  represents  the  best  knowledge  and  talent  available. 
Thus  managed,  each  plant  will  be  doing  the  best  it  can  for  itself, 
and  if  there  are  a  lot  of  smaller  plants  under  a  common  talented 
management,  the  work  of  each  plant  will  be  apportioned  so  that 
it  is  doing  what  it  is  best  fitted  to  do.  Such  combined  plants  will 
therefore  be  more  prosperous  than  they  could  be  if  they  continued 
to  compete  with  one  another  under  cheaper  management.  It 
should  be  realized,  however,  that  there  is  a  limit  to  the  size  of  the 
business  unit  which  can  be  efficiently  handled  ;  after  a  certain 
size  is  attained  the  supervising  expenses  increase  entirely  out  of 
proportion  to  the  advantages  secured. 

The  economies  of  large-scale  production.  The  economies  of 
large-scale  production  are  almost  self-evident ;  everyone  knows 
that  articles  that  can  be  made  by  the  thousands  are  produced 
much  more  cheaply  than  those  which  have  to  be  made  separately 
or  in  small  quantities.  It  may  cost  a  publishing  concern,  for 
example,  a  good  many  thousands  of  dollars  to  turn  out  the  first 
copy  of  a  book,  but  if  the  sale  is  going  to  be  large  enough, 
copies  can  be  sold  for  a  nominal  price.  The  modern  newspaper 
is  a  good  example  of  the  low  price  of  an  article  produced  on 
the  large  scale. 

Monopoly.  The  desire  for  monopoly  is  an  important  cause  for 
combination  and  is  the  one  generally  associated  with  the  corpora- 
tion or  trust.  There  are  both  advantages  and  danger  in  monop- 
oly. In  some  lines  of  industry,  such  as  transportation,  gas  works, 
and  telephone  service,  a  monopoly  is  almost  inevitable,  and  the 
dangers  to  the  public  which  w^ould  arise  from  the  ruthless  use  of 
this  power  have  to  be  minimized  by  careful  supervision  of  the 
companies  by  the  state  which  grants  them  their  charters. 

Advantages  of  the  corporation.  If  the  corporate  form  of  organi- 
zation had  not  had  its  advantages,  it  could  scarcely  have  developed 
so  strongly  and  permeated  almost  every  branch  of  modern  busi- 
ness organization.  It  is  worth  while  to  point  out  several  facts 
about  corporate  organization  in  addition  to  what  has  already 
been  said. 


THE  FINANCING  OF  INDUSTRY  383 

Permanence.  One  of  its  leading  advantages  is  its  permanence  : 
it  need  not  die,  but  may  continue  for  hundreds  of  years.  In  case 
of  a  business  owned  by  a  single  individual,  on  the  contrary,  the 
death  of  the  owner  generally  means  that  it  has  to  be  wound  up  or 
transferred  to  a  successor  ;  very  often  it  has  to  be  sold  to  close 
an  estate,  and  not  infrequently  at  a  great  sacrifice.  Similarly  with 
a  partnership  :  the  business  is  thrown  out  of  adjustment  when  a 
partner  dies,  and,  although  the  surviving  partner  can  buy  out 
the  heirs,  disputes  are  likely  to  occur  and  there  are  all  sorts  of 
hazards,  especially  to  the  heirs  of  the  deceased  man.  By  contrast, 
the  corporation  is  not  necessarily  involved  in  difficulties  by  the 
death  of  even  the  largest  stockholder,  for  someone  else  can  suc- 
ceed to  the  ownership  of  the  stock,  and  as  long  as  the  corporation 
is  well  managed  it  shows  no  change. 

Accumulation  of  small  capital.  Another  advantage  of  corporate 
organization  is  found  in  the  fact  that  it  provides  a  means  for 
financing,  by  the  collection  of  small  sums  from  numerous  indi- 
viduals, undertakings  completely  beyond  the  ability  of  one  or  a 
few  persons  to  carr}'.  The  shares  of  stock  may  be  placed  at  any 
denomination  from  ten  cents  upwards,  and  thus  millions  of  dollars 
may  be  collected  from  thousands  or  even  tens  of  thousands,  who 
are  thus  enabled  to  take  their  small  share  in  a  large  enterprise. 
Naturally  all  such  enterprises  are  not  legitimate  and  profitable, 
but  it  must  be  realized  that,  after  all,  the  real  capitalists  of  the 
country  are  the  multitudes  of  small  stockholders  rather  than  the 
few  large  ones.  There  are  so  many  more  people  in  moderate  than 
in  affluent  circumstances  that  without  the  combination  of  the  small 
savings  of  the  former  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  run  many  of 
the  largest  enterprises. 

Limited  liability.  This  ability  of  the  corporation  to  render 
possible  a  larger  industrial  development  than  could  take  place 
without  the  collection  of  small  sums  is  favored  by  the  limited 
liability  feature  of  which  we  have  spoken.  A  buyer  of  a  share 
of  stock,  if  it  is  fully  paid  and  nonassessable,  cannot  lose  more 
than  the  price  of  the  stock.    Now  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  no  poor 


3S4  IXDUSTRV   AND    TRADE 

man  who  had  saved  one  hundred  dollars  would  dare  put  it  into 
any  enterprise  if  he  were  going  to  be  unlimitedly  responsible  for 
the  obligations  of  that  enterprise  ;  he  dares  to  risk  the  actual  sum 
he  puts  in  where  he  would  not  dare  stake  anything  more.  He  is  in 
no  position  to  pay  debts  contracted  by  other  people,  even  if  these 
others  are  not  criminal  rascals.  But,  safe  in  his  limited  liability, 
he  is  able  to  contribute  his  mite  to  his  country's  industrial  develop- 
ment and  also  to  derive  his  proper  share  of  profits  from  it. 

Ease  of  entrance  or  withdrawal.  A  further  adxantage  of  the 
corporate  form  is  that  one  can  withdraw  from  a  corporation  quite 
easily  by  selling  his  share  on  the  market.  A  partner  cannot  so 
readily  withdraw  from  a  partnership,  for  many  a  partnership  has 
been  dissolved  only  after  disagreements  and  even  after  appeal 
to  the  courts.  This  ease  of  withdrawal,  which  is  matched  b\' 
a  similar  ease  of  entrance,  allows  a  mobility  of  business  move- 
ment which  makes  the  whole  organization  more  flexible  and  more 
adaptable  to  the  needs  and  crises  that  may  arise. 

Disadvantages  of  the  corporation.  If  there  w-ere  no  disadvan- 
tages in  the  corporate  form,  every  business,  large  and  small, 
would  be  so  organized.  What  are  these  disadvantages  .'*  There 
is  the  cost  of  incorporation  ;  then,  again,  the  officers  may  be  less 
careful  in  their  management  than  they  would  be  if  they  were  the 
sole  owners  ;  again,  there  is  a  disadvantage  in  the  fact  that  a  cor- 
poration is  more  subject  to  governmental  control  than  is  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  partnership.  Furthermore,  it  is  objected  that  in  large 
corporations  the  separation  of  the  employer  and  employee,  and 
their  consequent  lack  of  sympathy  with  one  another,  is  greater 
than  it  could  be  in  smaller  concerns.  The  stockholders  who  con- 
trol the  policy  of  the  corporation  may  never  have  seen  certain 
large  portions  of  its  plant,  much  less  have  met  the  persons  there 
employed.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  a  corporation  is  spoken 
of  not  only  as  impersonal  but  also  as  soulless. 


^ 


C  ,1111    ■:L..-.-^_jig- g-g  "S  .^- 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS 

Importance  of  labor.  In  the  preceding  chapters  we  have  seen 
the  importance  of  capital  to  the  development  of  our  industries. 
We  have  seen,  indeed,  that  capital  is  indispensable  to  the  growth 
of  civilization  itself.  But  there  is  another  factor  in  the  develop- 
ment of  both  industry  and  civilization  which  is  fully  as  important 
and  probably  much  older  than  capital,  namely,  labor.  Without 
labor  the  resources  of  a  country  are  of  no  present  use.  Perhaps 
in  some  of  the  Pacific  islands  at  the  time  of  their  discovery 
there  was  such  exuberance  of  the  products  of  nature  that  the 
natives  lived  in  a  sort  of  paradise  without  much  work,  but  it  is 
perfectly  plain  that  the  highest  civilization  has  never  originated 
in  such  favored  spots.  It  is  not  only  a  necessity  that  man  should 
labor  but  the  fact  tliat  he  is  obliged  to  do  so  is  good  for  him 
and  for  the  progress  of  mankind.  In  general,  the  highest  civiliza- 
tion is  to  be  found  where  men  have  been  most  industrious,  and 
the  most  civilized  races  are  those  in  which  the  habits  of  industry 
have  become  the  most  firmly  fixed. 

Need  of  labor  in  a  new  country.  We  have  seen  that  land  is 
of  no  avail  without  men,  that  is,  without  the  application  of  human 
effort,  and  that  this  effort  is  more  successful  if  the  men  are  of 
high  quality,  both  of  body  and  of  intelligence.  In  any  new  country 
the  quantity  of  labor  necessary  to  overcome  the  difficult  pioneer- 
ing conditions,  so  as  to  work  on  up  to  easier  and  more  modern 
systems,  is  very  great.     In  the  American  colonies,  as  always  on 

3^5 


386  INDUSTRY   AND  TRADE 

the  frontier,  there  was  much  work  to  be  done  at  the  same  time 
that  labor  was  scarce.  There  was  so  much  land,  and  it  was  so 
cheap,  that  the  tendency  was  for  newcomers  to  take  up  new  land 
rather  than  to  work  for  wages.  In  the  North  the  farms  were  small, 
and  the  owner  and  his  family  did  the  bulk  of  the  work,  hiring 
what  little  help  they  could.  Farmers  cooperated  with  one  another 
in  such  enterprises  as  house-raising  or  barn-raising,  where  a 
number  of  laborers  were  needed.  This  cooperative  plan  has  been 
natural  and  inevitable  under  similar  conditions  up  to  the  present 
day.  If  the  reader  will  recall  what  has  been  said  in  Chapter  I\' 
about  the  conditions  in  a  temperate  colony,  what  is  here  said  will 
take  its  proper  place  in  the  perspective.  He  will  also  see  how 
in  the  South,  where  large  plantations  and  a  staple  crop  were  the 
order  of  the  day,  more  crude  labor  was  needed  than  was  called 
for  farther  North. 

The  colonial  labor  force.  But  in  all  the  colonies,  especially 
when  other  industries  were  added  to  agriculture,  the  crying  need 
was  for  labor,  and  various  schemes  were  devised  for  obtaining 
workers  from  Europe.  Because  of  the  much  land  and  the  few 
men,  and  th^  consequent  fact  that  the  immigrant  naturally  became 
a  landowner  rather  than  a  wage-earner,  the  first  servants  were 
largely  ""  redemptioners  "  or  slaves.  Of  the  latter  we  need  to  say 
no  more,  for  we  have  considered  the  case  of  the  slave  in  Chap- 
ter III.  The  redemptioners,  or  indentured  servants,  were  in  reality 
in  temporary  servitude,  for,  not  having  any  funds,  they  contracted 
debts  for  their  transportation  and  were  sold  to  work  out  these 
debts  after  they  arrived.  But  even  they,  when  their  terms  of 
service  were  over,  tended  to  become  independent  proprietors. 

Immigrant  labor.  If  the  colonies  felt  the  lack  of  labor  while 
agriculture  was  as  yet  almost  their  onl\-  industrial  interest,  they 
felt  it  still  more  painfully  when  manufacturing  began  to  take  a 
start.  A  number  of  writers  in  the  earlier  days  asserted  that  the 
scarcity  of  labor  had  checked  the  introduction  of  manufactures, 
and  the  factory  svstem  with  them,  into  America.  Before  the 
immigrants  came  in  large  numbers  manufactures  could  flourish 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  387 

only  where  the  work  could  be  performed  by  women  and  children 
or  where  men  could  sell  their  time  in  dull  seasons.  This  is  the 
way  in  which  the  textile  and  the  boot  and  shoe  industries,  for 
example,  were  built  up ;  the  textile  industry  was  the  first  to  be 
organized  on  a  modern  scale  in  this  country,  and  it  was  built 
up  principally  by  the  labor  of  women. 

Preference  for  agriculture.  There  was  still  another  reason  for 
the  backwardness  of  manufacturing  development.  The  attraction 
of  the  independent  life  of  a  landowner  was  always  drawing  even 
the  skilled  newcomer  away  from  his  old  occupation  into  agricul- 
ture, and  the  sentiment  of  the  community  so  favored  the  more 
independent  pursuit  that  both  habit  and  social  prejudice  conspired 
to  depreciate  manufacture.  It  came  to  be  associated  with  poverty, 
especially  since  the  use  of  pauper  labor  in  British  factories  had 
fixed  a  lasting  stigma  upon  such  employment.  And  in  the  South, 
as  well,  labor  in  general  came  to  be  thought  of  as  a  servile  occu- 
pation —  a  fact  which  strengthened  the  natural  tendency  of  the 
colonists  to  seek  independent  employment.  This  is  one  of  the 
main  reasons  why  it  was  harder  in  this  country  to  divert  men  from 
farming  to  industrial  pursuits  than  it  has  been  elsewhere. 

Development  of  the  factory.  But  this  situation  was  greatly 
modified  by  the  influx  of  immigrants,  for  that  made  possible  the 
organization  of  labor  in  a  considerable  number  of  industries  and 
favored  the  adoption  of  the  factory  system  in  many  other  branches 
than  the  textile.  Even  before  the  Civil  War  the  part  played  by 
immigration  in  American  industry  was  very  great,  for  while  the 
number  of  immigrants  was  small  their  contributions  were  the 
more  needed.  At  times  there  was  great  industrial  unrest  in  Eng- 
land and  on  the  Continent,  which  drove  many  skilled  workers  to 
America,  where  they  expected  eventually  to  become  proprietors 
of  factories  of  their  own.  Many  of  them  realized  their  hopes  and 
became  pioneers  in  great  industries  which  developed  later,  intro- 
ducing into  this  country  the  arts  which  they  had  learned  in  Europe. 
Tt  is  said  that  the  infant  industries  of  Pittsburgh  were  conducted 
largely  by  Scotch  and  English  workmen,  and  our  textile  factories 


388  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

in  New  England  were  kept  going  by  skilled  operators  from  Eng- 
land and  Ireland.  The  British  immigrants  in  particular  were  very 
largely  skilled  workmen  and  were  exactly  what  we  needed  in  the 
beginnings  of  our  industry. 

Excellent  quality  of  the  early  immigrants.  The  impetus  given 
to  American  manufacture  by  such  advantages  enjoyed  during 
its  earlier  stages  is  difficult  to  overestimate.  Power  spinning  and 
weaving,  the  use  of  coal  and  coke  for  smelting  iron,  the  use  of  pud- 
dling furnaces  and  rolling  mills,  were  advantages  that  accrued 
from  deriving  skilled  laborers  from  a  land  where  the  industries 
were  more  highly  specialized  and  more  advanced  in  every  way. 
England  had  been  forced  by  the  scantiness  of  woodland  to  the 
use  of  coal,  and  because  of  large  markets  and  the  easy  transporta- 
tion that  had  been  developed  she  had  been  enabled  to  stride  for- 
ward to  wholesale  production.  The  use  of  chemicals  for  dyeing, 
as  well  as  other  applications  of  science  to  industry,  were  the 
natural  contributions  of  old  communities  possessing  ancient  in- 
stitutions of  learning,  ample  capital  for  experimentation,  and  a 
market  for  luxuries.  Some  of  these  inventions  were  so  dependent 
upon  conditions  not  then  existing  in  America  that  when  one  of 
our  manufacturers  chanced  upon  one  of  them  it  might  not  come 
into  practical  use  until  it  had  been  re-introduced  from  abroad. 

Skilled  labor.  The  fact  that  when  our  industries  were  in  their 
formative  stages  the  ranks  of  our  laboring  classes  were  being 
recruited  from  countries  industrially  far  in  advance  of  us,  and 
recruited  also  from  a  high-grade  class  of  laborers  possessing  a 
good  knowledge  of  machines,  was  a  considerable  factor  in  our 
earlier  and  later  successes.  The  truth  of  this  can  be  seen  if  one 
tries  to  imagine  the  result,  had  the  bulk  of  these  immigrants 
come,  at  that  time,  from  the  same  regions  from  which  the  bulk 
of  them  now  come.  This  will  recall,  again,  our  repeated  conten- 
tion that  America  was  very  fortunate  in  the  quality  of  the  human 
element  which  she  was  able  at  the  outset  to  draw  from  Europe. 

The  need  of  unskilled  labor.  Between  i860  and  1880  immi- 
gration was  proceeding  at  a  rapid  rate  and  our  industries  were  fast 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  389 

expanding.  Over  five  million  immigrants  arrived  in  this  country 
during  this  period,  but  their  presence  was  so  much  needed  that 
they  were  successfully  absorbed.  The  building  of  railroads  and 
the  development  of  the  metallic  industries  called  for  ever  larger 
supplies  of  both  skilled  and  unskilled  labor.  The  West  was  settled 
very  largely  by  our  native  stock,  whose  relinquished  places  would 
not  have  been  taken  except  for  the  multitude  of  newcomers  who 
filled  the  gap  in  the  labor  supply  and  thus  prevented  a  check 
on  growing  manufactures.  Skilled  labor  is  always  in  demand,  but 
the  improvements  in  our  industries,  and  especially  in  automatic 
machinery,  made  it  possible  for  us  to  use  unskilled  labor  in  our 
factories  with  considerable  satisfaction.  Up  to  1880  nine  tenths 
of  our  immigrants  were  from  Germany,  Ireland,  Great  Britain, 
Canada,  and  the  three  Scandinavian  states,  and  were  vigorous, 
thrifty,  quick  to  learn,  and  easily  molded  into  the  American  type. 
Yet  they  were,  in  their  day,  mostly  unskilled,  and  so  took  a  lower 
position  in  the  industrial  organization,  while  the  natives  rose  to 
the  higher  ones.  Those  who  wish  to  limit  immigration  should 
not  let  slip  from  their  minds  the  fact  that  there  was  an  immensity 
of  hard  and  rough  work,  much  of  which  demanded  little  more 
than  willing  hands,  but  whose  performance  was  indispensable  to 
our  industrial  and  social  development ;  and  that  if  the  immigrants 
had  not  been  on  hand  to  do  this  work,  either  it  would  not  have 
been  done  at  all  or  much  else  that  was  done  would  have  had 
to  be  omitted. 

Rise  of  the  immigrant.  It  is  a  fact,  as  we  have  seen  in  a 
former  chapter,  that  in  later  years  this  country  has  been  the 
refuge  of  those  who  have  had  very  few  chances  at  home,  and  also 
of  many  whose  manner  of  life  does  not  fit  into  ours  very  well ; 
but  if  the  whole  course  of  immigration  into  this  country  is  consid- 
ered, it  is  seen  that,  although  every  new  set  of  immigrants  was 
slipped  in,  as  it  were,  at  the  bottom  of  the  social  pile,  yet  under 
the  system  of  freedom  and  opportunity  characteristic  of  this  coun- 
tr)'  it  has  always  been  possible  for  the  industrious  and  enterprising 
to  work  themselves  up  among  the  older  and  higher  layers.    This 


390  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

has  been  the  Land  of  Promise  for  many  decades  to  hordes  of  the 
miserable  and  oppressed  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  the 
opportunities  accorded  have  been  happily  taken  advantage  of  by 
thousands.  And  at  the  same  time  this  country  has  profited  by 
the  labor  supply  afforded  it  at  a  time  when  that  supply,  even 
though  of  low  quality,  was  much  in  demand.  This  is  certainly 
true,  whatever  doubts  one  may  now  have  about  the  continuance 
of  our  free-and-easy  methods  in  the  matter  of  immigration. 

Colonial  wages.  The  conditions  of  labor  in  colonial  times, 
even  when  such  labor  was  free,  seem  to  us,  in  the  light  of 
present-day  conditions,  quite  bad  ;  and  this  is  true  of  the  early 
part  of  the  last  century.  An  unskilled  workman  would  earn  some- 
thing like  fifty  cents  a  day,  and  the  working  hours  were  from 
sunrise  to  sunset.  With  the  opening  of  the  West  the  condition 
of  the  unskilled  laborer  somewhat  improved  and  he  received  a 
dollar  a  day.  It  must  be  realized  that  these  sums  represented  at 
that  time  a  much  higher  purchasing  power  than  they  had  later. 
There  was  not  so  much  to  complain  of  as  one  would  judge  at 
first  sight ;  and  then,  of  course,  labor  was  so  far  from  organized 
that  any  complaints  that  did  arise  were  local  and  isolated. 

The  labor  movement.  But  during  the  third  decade  of  the 
last  century  there  arose  what  might  be  called  a  real  labor  move- 
ment. It  did  not  start  because  of  bad  conditions  in  our  factories, 
for  outside  of  the  textile  industry,  which  employed  mostly  women 
and  children,  factories  of  any  size  were  few.  What  movement 
there  was  grew  up  as  a  protest  against  a  system,  developed  by 
merchants  and  capitalists,  which,  it  was  thought,  was  reducing 
mechanics  of  various  degrees  of  skill  to  a  common  level  of  wage- 
dependency.  This  movement,  as  well  as  a  number  of  others 
before  the  middle  of  the  century,  had  only  a  brief  career.  A  trade- 
union  movement  was  developed  about  1853  which  showed  more 
strength  and  in  which  attention  was  directed  toward  bettering  con- 
ditions in  the  trades  ;  and,  after  the  Civil  War  had  shown  that  in- 
dustries were  to  be  run  by  free  labor,  most  labor  movements  were 
in  the  direction  of  improving  the  conditions  of  the  free  laborers. 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  391 

Labor  organization  and  legislation.  All  through  this  book  we 
have  noticed  that  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the 
Civil  War  have  formed  a  point  of  departure  for  industrial  develop- 
ment of  a  higher  order  in  many  fields.  The  growth  of  population 
and  its  tendency  to  concentrate  in  cities,  together  with  the  marked 
development  of  manufacturing  industries,  evoked  new  labor  con- 
ditions of  a  more  modern  order.  The  size  of  the  industrial  plant 
increased  and  the  workman  was  no  longer  personall}-  known  to 
his  employer.  But  when  people  who  have  business  relations  are 
thus  separated,  they  naturally  fall  out  of  harmony  with  one  another 
and  into  a  mood  of  suspicion  and  opposition.  Conflicts  arose  be- 
tween labor  and  capital ;  then  labor  was  more  firmly  organized 
and  began  to  bring  about  the  large  mass  of  labor  legislation  that 
had  to  do  with  hours  of  labor,  employment  of  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  other  such  desirable  reforms  which  cannot  in  all  cases 
be  expected  from  employers.  The  bulk  of  such  legislation  has 
been  passed  since  1880,  but  Massachusetts  had  led  the  way  as 
early  as  1866  by  passing  an  eight-hour  law  for  children  under 
fourteen.  Most  of  the  early  labor  legislation  was  in  favor  of 
women  and  children.  Improvements  in  labor  conditions  have 
been  brought  about  largely  by  the  creation  of  organizations  so 
that  laborers  could  act  as  a  unit  in  looking  after  their  interests. 

The  labor  union.  Prior  to  the  Civil  War  there  were  very  few 
labor  unions  in  this  country,  but  many  were  formed  between 
i860  and  1870  in  connection  with  the  most  important  trades. 
The  strike  was  the  weapon  used  by  the  labor  unions  to  secure 
their  ends  ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  late  seventies  that  strikes 
became  significant  enough  to  attract  public  attention  ;  it  was  in 
1877  that  a  widespread  railroad  strike  gave  the  American  people 
their  first  realization  of  the  problems  which  the  great  growth  of 
industr}'  and  the  creation  of  much  wealth  were  bringing  upon 
the  country.  Whether  or  not  we  credit  it  to  the  labor  organiza- 
tions, it  is  a  fact  that  labor  conditions  have  greatly  improved 
during  the  last  few  decades  ;  working  hours  have  been  shortened, 
wages  have  risen,  and  the  general  condition  of  the  bulk  of  industrial 


39-'  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

workers  is  nuich  more  satisfactory  tlian  it  was  before  the  Civil 
War.  Outside  of  the  body  of  industrial  workers  such  progress 
has  not  been  shown  ;  and  this  is  particularly  true  of  the  agricul- 
tural laborers,  who  could  not  very  readily  organize  and  whose 
wages  and  hours  of  work  have,  remained  until  very  recently 
much   as   thev   were  a  half-century  ago. 

Capital  and  labor.  It  is  not  our  intention  in  this  place  to  enter 
into  the  pros  and  cons  of  the  many  disputes  between  capital  and 
labor.  We  shall  describe  several  movements  wiiich  have  resulted 
in  better  relations  between  the  two,  as  examples  of  what  may 
be  won  by  intelligent  study  of  the  conditions.  But  it  siiould  be 
recognized  by  every  intelligent  American  citizen  that  capital  and 
labor  cannot  be  independent  of  one  another  but  must  always  be 
interdependent.  Industries  cannot  exist  without  the  laborers  or 
without  the  capital,  nor  can  the  laborers  exist  without  the  indus- 
tries and  the  capital  behind  them.  The  interests  of  the  two 
parties  should  be  the  same,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  form 
of  adjustment  will  be  arrived  at  so  that  industrial  peace  will  come 
out  of  what  has  so  often  been  industrial  war.  The  capitalist  can- 
not accept  dictation  from  the  laborer,  nor  can  the  laborer  consent 
to  allow  the  capitalist  to  dictate  conditions  of  employment.  Dis- 
cussion and  cooperation  between  the  two  is  better  than  is  dicta- 
tion on  the  part  of  either.  Increasing  responsibility  on  the  part 
of  the  capitalist  or  the  organization  which  he  represents,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  laborer  or  his  trade  union,  on  the  other,  is 
essential  to  the  carrying  out  of  whatever  agreement  may  be  made 
between  the  parties. 

Employers'  liability.  In  recent  years  we  have  turned  our 
attention  to  the  safeguarding  of  the  life  and  limb  of  the  laborer. 
Under  the  common  law  the  employer  has  long  been  required  to 
afford  his  employees  safe  labor  conditions.  He  was  not,  however, 
responsible  for  injuries  caused  to  workmen  which  were  "  incident 
to  the  business,"  nor  was  he  liable  for  the  negligence  of  a  fellow 
servant.  Consequently  an  employer,  if  he  so  desired,  was  until 
recently  able  to  shift   practically  all  responsibility  for  industrial 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  393 

accidents  upon  others  than  himself.  But  many  states  have  now- 
modified  this  common-law  doctrine  so  as  to  make  the  employer 
assume  liability  in  many  more  cases  of  accident  than  formerl}-. 
In  1 9 14  we  had  practically  no  workmen's  compensation  laws  in 
any  of  the  states,  whereas,  at  the  present  day,  there  are  few  states 
without  such  laws. 

Workmen's  compensation.  The  compensation  of  workmen  who 
meet  with  accidents  is  vitally  connected  with  very  grave  social 
issues,  especially  with  that  of  poverty.  As  the  factory  system  has 
grown  to  larger  and  larger  dimensions  the  world  has  experi- 
enced a  tremendous  industrial  expansion,  and  along  with  this  there 
has  grown  up  notoriious  disregard  for  human  life.  In  a  single 
year  in  the  United  States  a  half  million  or  more  of  laborers  are 
killed  outright  or  injured  ;  and  many  of  those  who  are  injured  are 
disabled  for  life,  while  others  are  incapacitated  for  varying  periods. 
And  then  there  are  the  families  which  are  dependent  upon  the 
killed  or  injured  workmen  and  wliich,  because  of  the  loss  of  in- 
come and  the  extra  expenditures  involved,  often  fall  into  a  truly 
pitiable  condition.  It  is  plain  that  industrial  accidents  should  be 
reduced  to  the  lowest  possible  number  and  that  proper  compensa- 
tion or  indemnification  should  be  provided.  All  such  human 
misery  should  be  reduced  to  its  low'est  limits.  But  this  is  a  knotty 
problem,  for  justice  must  be  done  at  the  same  time  to  both  the 
employer  and  the  employed. 

Industrial  accidents.  We  have  seen  that  until  a  few  decades 
ago  the  whole  burden  of  industrial  accidents,  excepting  those  for 
which  the  employer  could  be  shown  to  be  solely  to  blame,  had  been 
borne  by  the  workman.  The  idea  which  prevailed  was  that  the 
workman  in  taking  the  job  would  figure  on  the  peril  to  life  and 
limb,  and  that  as  a  consequence  of  his  steering  clear  of  danger- 
ous occupations  there  would  be  a  scarcity  of  laborers  in  them 
and  the  wages  would  be  so  high  as  to  justify  the  venture.  But 
this  theory,  like  so  many  others  that  neglect  the  plain  facts  of 
life  and  of  human  nature,  did  not  work  out.  Laborers  have  only 
the  most  general  idea  of  the  danger  of  occupations,  and  they  do 


394  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

not  expect  to  suffer  by  them.  There  are  usually  plenty  of  candi- 
dates for  positions  as  switchmen  on  railroads,  although  the  occupa- 
tion is  a  hazardous  one  and  is  not  highly  paid.  What  the  laborer 
out  of  work  generally  has  to  do  is  to  take  the  job  which  he  can 
get ;  he  is  seldom  well  enough  off  to  wait  until  he  can  pick  and 
choose.  Thus  the  plan  for  making  the  individual  laborer  work 
out  his  own  salvation  in  taking  a  job  and  standing  the  risk  does 
not  succeed. 

Evasion  of  compensation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  plan  of  em- 
ployers' liability  as  it  existed  under  the  common  law  did  not 
prove  satisfactory.  An  employer  could  evade  liability  by  estab- 
lishing any  one  of  three  defenses:  (i)  contributory  negligence, 
(2)  assumption  of  risk,  and  (3)  the  fellow-servant  rule.  The  first 
of  these  means  that  an  injury  is  caused  by  the  negligence  of  the 
injured  man  ;  the  assumption  of  risk  means  that  if  there  is  an 
injury  caused  by  a  danger  inherent  in  the  occupation,  the  em- 
ployee is  as  well  able  to  protect  himself  as  the  employer  to  pro- 
tect him  ;  and  the  third  defense  rests  on  the  contention  that  if 
an  injury  is  caused  by  the  negligence  of  a  fellow  workman,  the 
employer  is  not  liable.  According  to  the  common  law  the  estab- 
lishment of  any  one  of  these  defenses  nullifies  the  liability  of 
the  employer  ;  but,  as  can  easily  be  seen,  no  one  of  the  three 
would  be  very  difficult  for  a  sharp  lawyer  to  establish. 

"Workmen's  compensation  laws.  When  it  was  found  that  this 
common-law  system  of  employers'  liability  was  full  of  defects, 
and  that  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  injured  received  com- 
pensation, the  remedy  was  sought  in  the  adoption,  by  the  various 
states,  of  workmen's  compensation  laws.  The  general  theory  back 
of  these  laws  is  that  industry  should  assume  the  burden  of  loss 
of  life  or  the  burden  of  accident,  just  as  industry  bears  the  ex- 
pense of  new  machinery  or  of  repairing  old  machinery.  The 
machine  helps  to  make  the  product ;  so  does  the  workman.  If  a 
machine  is  broken  it  must  be  repaired  or  replaced  ;  and  similarly 
if  a  workman  is  injured  or  killed  there  must  be  a  reparation  and 
compensation.    And  there  is  also  behind  these  compensation  laws 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  395 

the  general  principle  that  compensation  shall  be  forthcoming  with- 
out regard  to  the  question  as  to  whose  fault  it  was  that  the  acci- 
dent took  place.  This  enables  every  person  injured  in  the  course 
of  duty  to  obtain  compensation  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of 
disability  incurred. 

Insurance.  This  puts  a  considerable  risk  upon  the  employer, 
and  he  generally  takes  recourse,  as  in  the  case  of  other  risks,  to 
insurance.  The  upshot  of  the  laws  is,  then,  that  employers  must 
incur  an  additional  steady  expenditure  in  order  that  the  workman 
may  be  protected  ;  it  is,  of  course,  possible  for  the  employer  to 
pass  this  item  on  to  the  consumer  in  the  form  of  a  higher  price 
for  the  product,  so  that  the  public  pays.  But  it  is  a  service  to 
society  to  protect  and  compensate  its  members  against  the  risks  of 
life,  and  society  has  seemed  well  content  to  shoulder  the  burden. 
In  any  case,  there  is  now  no  uncertainty  as  to  the  basis  of  lia- 
bility, nor  yet  concerning  the  amount  of  the  indemnity,  for  there 
are  definite  schedules  covering  this  matter ;  and  it  is  now  rea- 
sonably certain  that  the  injured  will  be  able  to  collect  promptly, 
whereas  under  the  older  system  there  might  be  protracted  bick- 
erings and  legal  procedure  leading  to  a  barren  result  in  the  end. 
It  looks  very  much  as  if  we  had  worked  out  a  system  much  better 
adapted  to  comfortable  living  than  was  the  one  which  preceded  it. 

Group  life  insurance.  A  new  phase  of  insurance,  designed  for 
the  benefit  of  the  employees  of  a  concern,  is  what  is  known  as 
group  life  insurance.  A  number  of  companies  have  recently 
adopted  this  as  a  Christmas  gift  or  bonus  to  their  employees. 
This  form  of  insurance  is  designed  to  increase  the  efficiency  and 
stimulate  the  loyalty  of  the  workers,  so  as  to  strengthen  mutual 
good  will  and  make  the  business  relations  between  employer  and 
employee  closer  and  more  permanent.  The  amount  of  insurance 
has  for  its  basis  generally  a  year's  wages  or  salary,  with  about 
$3000  as  the  limit;  or  each  employee  is  given  $500  or  $1000 
worth  of  insurance  which  is  to  be  increased,  up  to  a  certain  point, 
by  $100  annually  for  each  additional  year  of  service.  Group  life 
insurance  is  ordinarily  carried,  for  the  concern  in  question,  by  one 


396  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

or  more  insurance  companies  ;  but  in  some  cases  it  is  assumed  by 
the  emploving  corporations  themselves,  just  as  some  large  shipping 
concerns  insure  their  own  vessels  rather  than  have  them  insured 
by  companies. 

A  case  of  insurance.  In  illustration  of  this  device  we  might 
mention  the  case  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  which,  on  Janu- 
ary 1,  191 7,  had  35,000  to  40,000  of  its  employees  insured  with- 
out any  cost  to  themselves,  the  company  carrying  the  premium. 
They  were  also  insured  in  a  large  casualty  company  against  loss 
by  accident  and  sickness.  The  total  insurance  amounted  to  about 
830,000,000,  and  the  annual  premium  charges  to  about  $750,000. 

How  "  having  a  heart "  pays.  It  is  entirely  likely  that  proj- 
ects of  this  sort  really  pay  in  the  end.  It  is  impossible  to  ignore 
the  fact  that  human  beings  have  emotions,  and  that  their  effi- 
ciency varies  with  their  state  of  mind.  If  a  laborer  is  always 
worried  about  the  future,  and  thinks  that  his  employer  has  no 
interest  in  his  welfare,  he  cannot  w^ork  with  the  zest  or  the  suc- 
cess which  he  might  attain  if  he  had  more  peace  of  mind.  There 
are  types  of  laborers  upon  whose  stupidity  or  bad  disposition  no 
amount  of  consideration  will  make  any  impression.  If  they  are 
given  an  inch  they  will  take  an  ell.  Such  persons  do  not  deserve 
consideration.  But  the  ordinary  normal  human  being  is  the  one 
for  whose  benefit  these  schemes  are  devised,  and  the  preliminary 
returns  seem  to  prove  that  real  results  are  obtained. 

The  labor  question.  The  question  of  labor,  like  that  of  capital, 
is  one  upon  which  many  volumes  have  been  written.  It  is  out  of 
the  question  to  make  any  complete  survey  of  the  various  plans  to 
promote  its  efficiency  which  have  been  tried.  But  the  above  para- 
graphs describe  some  of  the  most  important  conditions  and  devices 
for  securing  adjustment  that  are  connected  with  this  subject,  and 
exhibit  the  historic  trend  of  events  which  has  accompanied  the 
development  of  our  industries  since  colonial  times. 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  397 

SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION 

Retrospect.  And  now,  in  the  course  of  this  book,  we  have  set 
before  the  reader  a  series  of  fundamental  facts  out  of  the  history 
of  American  industries  and  trade.  The  first  essentials  were  the 
land  and  the  people,  and  we  briefly  described  the  productive 
areas,  with  their  natural  resources,  and  then  the  human  element 
and  its  social  development.  The  rest  of  the  book  has  been  a 
presentation  of  the  various  efforts  put  forth  by  man  to  utilize  the 
land  and  its  products,  and  the  results  attained  by  such  efforts. 
Thus  have  been  developed  the  agricultural  industries,  the  animal 
industries,  the  mineral,  manufacturing,  and  transportation  indus- 
tries. And,  finally,  we  have  considered  the  various  methods 
adopted  or  proposed  whereby  each  and  all  of  our  industries  have 
been  or  may  be  raised  to  a  higher  grade. 

Industrial  life  is  only  one  part  of  social  life.  We  have  under- 
taken to  make  a  survey  of  a  certain  section  of  the  nation's  life  ; 
that  is,  of  its  industrial  and  commercial  development.  Hut  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  this  section  of  the  national  life  cannot  be 
separated  from  other  sections  except  for  purposes  of  study,  for 
if  we  wish  to  see  our  industrial  life  in  operation,  we  can  never 
see  it  thus  by  itself.  There  are  other  sets  of  national  institutions  — 
such  as  the  domestic,  the  political,  and  the  religious  —  which  exist 
side  by  side  with  the  industrial  institutions,  and  w'hich  deeply 
influence  them  and  are  deeply  influenced  by  them.  In  fact,  these 
several  sets  of  institutions  do  not  really  exist  side  by  side,  but 
completely  interpenetrate  one  into  another,  so  that  they  have  no 
independent  life  of  their  own,  but  form  one  living  body  and  one 
life,  which  is  the  life  of  the  nation. 

The  need  of  understanding  our  national  life  as  a  whole.  A  true 
industrial  education  is,  therefore,  not  complete  unless  its  recipient 
has  arrived  at  some  conception  of  the  relationship  between  the 
national  industrial  life  and  other  aspects  of  the  national  life.  This 
means  that  that  man  has  the  best  industrial  education  who  has 
not  limited  himself  strictly  to  the  study  of  industry,  but  who  has 


Courtesy  of  The  Nation's  Business 

THESE  ARE  THE  LIGHTS  OF   INDUSTRY  ;    THEY  MUST  BE   KEPT  BURNING 


398 


LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS  399 

also  read  and  reflected  upon  the  other  aspects  of  national  life 
and  their  relations  one  with  another.  It  is  necessary  for  the  pur- 
pose of  study  to  take  up  one  section  of  our  national  life  at  a  time, 
and  so  we  have  a  histor)'  of  American  politics,  for  example,  as 
well  as  a  history  of  American  industries  and  commerce.  In  the 
present  book  we  have  confined  ourselves  to  the  latter  topic,  but  we 
cannot  conclude  our  work  without  warning  the  reader  once  again 
that  industrial  life  is  but  part  of  the  national  life  and  cannot  be 
thoroughly  understood  without  a  comprehension  of  that  life  as  a 
whole.  When  one  has  derived  a  conception  of  our  American 
industrial  and  commercial  organization  from  some  such  series  of 
facts  and  conclusions  as  the  one  we  have  here  presented,  he 
must  realize  that  his  conception  is  still  incomplete  until  it  is 
expanded  to  take  in  a  vision  of  the  industrial  organization  in  its 
mutual  relations  with  the  rest  of  the  national  structure. 


QUESTIONS   FOR  REVIEW 


CHAPTER  1 

PRODUCTIVE  AREAS   AND   PHYSICAL  FACTORS   AFFECTING 
PRODUCTION 

How  is  land  the  basis  of  all  life  on  earth?  What  is  meant  by  land-wealth? 
What  is  the  United  States  Proper?  How  large  is  it?  What  advantages  has  the 
United  States  in  location?  Why  is  the  quality  of  land  important?  Why  can 
our  land  support  many  industries  ?  What  is  of  more  importance  than  excellent 
quality  of  land  ?  Why  ? 

What  physical  factors  affect  production  ?  What  is  climate  ?  What  factors 
determine  climate  ?  Men  living  in  the  temperate  zones  have  what  advantages  ? 
Why  is  high  altitude  equivalent  to  high  latitude  ?  Why  are  winds  factors  in 
man's  life?  What  causes  the  difference  in  the  temperature  of  England  and 
Labrador?  What  is  meant  by  "aspect"'  of  land?  How  much  annual  rainfall 
is  desirable  for  human  life?  for  agriculture? 

What  is  irrigation  ?  How  is  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  the  basis  of  civiliza- 
tion ?  Name  the  essential  plant  foods.  What  three  soils  arc  most  productive  ? 
What  are  the  two  basic  factors  in  plant  life? 

W^hat  is  the  general  difference  between  the  eastern  and  the  western  parts  of 
the  United  States?  Give  the  general  division  of  physical  areas  in  the  United 
States  for  the  study  of  industries.  What  is  the  "fall  line"?  Where  is  it? 
What  are  the  industries  of  the  Appalachian  Mountains  ?  What  is  raised  in  the 
Central  Lowlands  ?  Why  is  this  an  agricultural  section  ?  Where  are  the  best 
grazing  lands  of  the  United  States  ?  Name  four  mining  sections. 

CHAPTER   H 

NATURAL  RESOURCES 

What  are  commonly  thought  of  as  free  gifts  of  nature?  Are  these  free 
everywhere?  What  do  you  mean  by  "  natural  resources  "?  Why  is  it  necessary 
to  conserve  natural  resources  ?  What  is  meant  by  conservation  ?  The  three 
needs  of  man  are  what?  How  does  he  supply  them?  Name  some  substitutes 
for  wood  as  fuel.    What  is  needed  to  utilize  resources  ? 

What  are  the  main  causes  of  our  success  in  industry?  What  did  the  report 
of  the  National  Conservation  Commission  reveal  in  1908?  What  is  the  po.sition 

401 


402  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

of  the  I'nited  States  in  regard  to  minerals?  Where  are  the  coal  areas  of 
the  United  States?  How  are  their  locations  an  advantage  to  manufacturers? 
What  is  the  most  important  nonmetal  ?  the  most  important  metal  ?  Where  is 
iron  found?  Why  is  iron  important?  How  large  are  our  petroleum  fields? 
Where  are  they  located  ?  What  is  the  difference  between  natural  gas  and 
"producer"  gas?  How  does  the  United  States  rank  in  extent  of  natural-gas 
fields?  Name  six  other  important  minerals.  What  is  the  classification  of  the 
forests  of  the  United  States  ?    Which  contain  hard  woods  ?  soft  woods  ? 

Why  is  water  so  necessary?  What  effect  has  water  power  had  on  settle- 
ments? Why  is  water  power  resuming  much  of  its  former  importance?  Where 
is  the  greatest  proportion  of  our  potential  water  power  ?  What  five  groups  of 
states  are  using  power  other  than  water  power?    What  is  the  reason  for  this? 

Why  are  native  plant  and  animal  life  more  important  to  the  savage  than  to 
the  civilized  man?  How  important  to  us  are  the  native  products  of  North 
America  ? 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  HUMAN  ELEMENT 

What  is  the  unit  of  production?  W^hat  two  races  have  developed  a  high 
civilization  ?  What  two  backward  races  form  a  part  of  our  population  ?  What 
w-ere  the  labors  of  the  Indian  ?  Why  did  he  not  become  a  part  of  the  white 
man's  civilization  ?  What  influence  has  he  had  ?  W'hy  were  negroes  brought 
here  ?  What  climate  is  best  for  the  white  man  ?  Why  ?  What  was  the  great 
need  of  the  South?  How  was  this  met?  W'hy  was  the  Indian  a  poor  slave? 
Where  is  the  negro  needed  in  industry?    Why? 

From  what  countries  did  the  early  immigrants  come  ?  What  was  their  char- 
acter generally  ?  What  were  some  of  the  causes  of  immigration  ?  From  where 
did  the  later  immigrants  come?  What  is  meant  by  the  "  melting  pot "  ?  Give 
two  unfavorable  features  of  recent  immigration.  Why  is  it  so  important  to 
educate  our  immigrants?  In  what  ways  is  the  immigration  question  an 
important  one? 

CHAPTER  IV 

SOCIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

Why  is  the  "American  type"  not  a  permanent  thing?  What  is  frontier 
society  ?  Why  does  the  society  of  the  North  and  the  South  differ  so  radically  ? 
Why  are  there  so  few  white  people  in  the  tropics?  What  is  the  reason  for 
classes  in  tropical  society?  Why  are  the  tropics  important  industrially? 
Why  are  they  economically  dependent?  politically  dependent?  What  causes 
the  homogeneous  population  of  the  temperate  zone?    Why  could  the  North 


QUESTIONS  FOR  REVIEW  403 

have  free  labor  rather  than  slaves  ?  Are  tropical  or  temperate  colonies  more 
independent  of  the  -mother-countr)' ?  Why?  Why  has  Yankee  cleverness 
become  proverbial  ? 

What  are  the  three  features  of  democracy  ?  What  kind  of  men  were  first 
attracted  to  North  America?  How  did  the  life  here  make  for  equality?  What 
leads  to  the  political  independence  of  a  community  ?  ^\'hy  have  Americans 
developed  such  national  prosperity  ?  What  are  the  characteristics  of  the  Ameri- 
can man  ?  What  has  helped  to  form  these  ?  What  is  becoming  of  our  frontier  ? 
What  effect  does  social  life  have  on  industry  ? 

CHAPTER  V 

CEREALS 

In  what  way  is  farming  the  foundation  of  all  industry?  What  is  agriculture 
dependent  upon  for  success?  What  is  the  principal  source  of  our  wealth? 
Why  ?  Why  are  we  superior  to  other  nations  in  agriculture  ?  What  cereals  do 
we  raise  ?  What  part  has  corn  played  in  our  agricultural  development  ?  Where 
is  the  cereal  belt  of  the  United  States  ?  the  "  corn  belt  "  ?  What  proportion  of 
the  world's  corn  crop  do  we  raise?  For  what  is  corn  used?  In  what  form  is 
much  of  it  exported  ? 

What  is  the  difference  between  "  white  wheat ""  and  "  whole  wheat  "?  Where 
was  wheat  grown  in  the  colonies?  Explain  its  decline  in  Virginia  and  New 
England.  Where  is  the  "  wheat  belt "  ?  What  factors  led  to  wheat-raising  in 
the  West?  What  proportion  of  the  world's  wheat  do  we  produce?  What  is 
the  average  yield  per  acre  in  the  United  States  ?  What  industries  are  connected 
with  corn  and  wheat  ?  How  much  of  our  wheat  crop  do  we  need  for  home 
consumption  ? 

Where  are  oats  most  used  as  a  human  food  ?  Where  arc  most  of  our  oats 
raised?  What  country  yields  the  most  oats?  What  one  ranks  second ?  Where 
is  most  of  the  barley  grown  ?  What  has  supplanted  this  as  a  human  food  ? 
Where  is  barley  raised  in  the  United  States?  For  what  is  rye  used?  How 
important  is  the  crop  in  the  United  States?  In  what  section  is  it  found? 
Where  is  rice  grown  in  the  United  States?  Why  is  it  in  more  common  use  in 
the  East  than  here?    For  what  is  sorghum  used?    What  use  has  buckwheat? 

CHAPTER  VI 
VEGETABLES   AND   FRUITS 

What  is  meant  by  "payment  in  kind"?  How  does  this  illustrate  the  im- 
portance of  vegetables  and  fruits  ?  When  were  fruits  and  vegetables  first  raised 
for  commerce  in  this  country?  How  arc  markets  supplied  with  them  out  of 
season?    How  has  such  food  transportation  affected  our  way  of  living?    How 


404  IXDISTRV  AND    TRADE 

do  potatoes  rank  as  a  staple  food  ?  What  can  be  used  as  a  substitute  for  pota- 
toes? Where  are  most  of  the  potatoes  raised?  What  is  the  average  yield  per 
acre?  Is  this  large  or  small  compared  with  wheat  and  with  area?  What  are 
some  of  the  dangers  to  the  crop?  How  much  is  it  possible  to  increase  the 
yield  in  our  fields? 

What  are  legumes  ?  nodules  ?  What  value  have  they  for  the  soil  ?  Why  is 
our  production  of  peas  and  beans  small  compared  with  that  of  other  countries  ? 
Why  are  we  less  careful  of  sugar  beets  than  the  people  of  Europe  ? 

How  does  the  standard  of  living  affect  fruit  production?  How  long  has 
the  apple  been  cultivated  ?  Why  were  apples  used  almost  exclusively  for  cider 
in  this  country  at  first?  Where  were  our  apple  orchards  first  found?  Where 
now  ?  What  is  the  value  of  the  apple  crop  compared  with  other  fruits  ?  Where 
w-ere  peaches  first  cultivated?  Where  are  they  found  in  the  United  States? 
In  what  forms  are  peaches  marketed?  What  two  crops  only  surpass  the  grape 
in  value?    Where  are  grapes  grown  in  this  country? 

From  where  were  oranges  introduced  into  America?  In  what  climate  do 
they  grow?  Why  can  you  buy  oranges  at  all  times  of  the  year?  Name  some 
other  important  fruit  crops.  What  four  fruits  are  now  raised  here  that  were 
formerly  imported  entirely  ?  What  industry  is  based  upon  fruits  and  vegetables  ? 
How  important  is  it? 

CHAPTER  VII      . 
SUGAR 

What  are  the  sources  from  which  sugar  is  obtained  ?  Why  has  commercial 
industry  not  been.^wifined  to  the  merely  useful  products?  How  did  sugar 
change  from  a  luxury  to  a  necessity?  When  is  it  now  a  luxury?  What  are 
common  sources  of  commercial  sugar?  How  does  sugar  cane  grow  ?  Where? 
Where  does  it  grow  in  the  United  States?  W^hat  territories  of  the  United 
States  produce  sugar  cane  ?    Where  is  its  production  most  successful  ?    Why  ? 

W^hen  did  beet  sugar  become  an  important  industry  ?  W^here  is  its  most 
successful  cultivation  ?  How  did  war  stimulate  the  beginning  of  this  industry? 
When  was  the  industry  firmly  established  in  this  country  ?  What  states  produce 
the  most  beet  sugar  ?    What  proportion  of  the  world's  production  do  we  raise  ? 

What  processes  does  the  cane  pass  through  to  become  white  sugar  ?  What 
is  the  vacuum  pan?    How  are  beets  treated  to  produce  sugar? 

CHAPTER  VIII 
COTTON 

What  factors  are  necessary  to  successful  cotton-growing?  What  hindered 
the  demand  for  cotton  in  the  eighteenth  century?  Show  how  our  production  of 
cotton  has  been  increasing.    What  part  of  the  world's  crop  do  we  raise?   W'hat 


QUESTIONS  FOR  REVIEW  405 

part  has  cotton  played  in  our  history?  What  was  cotton  first  used  for?  Who 
was  Eli  Whitney?  How  did  he  aid  the  cotton  industry?  What  states  lie  in 
the  "  cotton  belt "  ?  Which  one  produces  the  most  cotton  ?  How  long  did  it 
take  for  the  cotton  industry  to  recover  from  the  effects  of  the  Civil  War? 
Name  the  varieties  of  cotton.    Which  is  the  best?  Why?  Where  is  it  grown? 

Describe  the  cotton  plant.  Why  is  the  harvesting  done  by  hand  ?  Why  is 
it  the  costliest  part  of  the  production  ?  How  is  cotton  prepared  for  market  ? 
Where  is  cotton  manufactured?  Why  is  New  England  the  chief  factory  re- 
gion? Describe  the  advance  made  in  spinning.  How  was  weaving  first  done? 
What  is  meant  by  a  factory  system  ?  Describe  mercerizing.  What  is  its  value  ? 
What  are  the  last  processes  in  cotton  manufacture  ?  What  are  the  sources  of 
modern  dyes  ? 

What  are  some  of  the  uses  for  cottonseed?  How  is  it  treated?  What  are 
by-products  ?    What  cities  are  called  the  cotton  cities  ?  Why  ? 

CHAPTER  IX 
CATTLE 

Why  were  wild  animals  of  little  value  to  man?  How  did  the  domestication 
of  animals  advance  the  civilization  of  man  ?  Why  did  man  care  for  the  breeding 
of  animals?  Explain  how  a  country's  wealth  lies  largely  in  domesticated  ani- 
mals. What  is  necessary  to  keep  up  a  good  breed  ?  Why  did  the  savage  fail 
in  this?    Why  are  there  few  American  breeds? 

What  different  kinds  of  cattle  were  brought  to  America?  For  what  were 
they  used?  Why  were  the  early  cattle  poor  grade?  What  influence  did  the 
East  exert  on  Western  cattle-raising?  What  were  the  cattle  slates  of  1850? 
What  are  they  to-day  ?  Why  do  cowboys  and  farmers  dislike  each  other  ? 
Why  are  there  few  milch  cows  on  the  Plains  ?  What  effect  has  the  refrigerator 
car  had  on  the  cattle  industry  ? 

How  was  fresh  beef  sent  across  the  Atlantic?  Why  is  more  live  stock 
shipped  to  Europe  than  fresh  beef?  Which  is  more  expensive?  Where  are 
the  meat-packing  centers?   What  started  this  industry? 

How  is  milk  brought  to  large  cities  ?  Why  are  sanitary  methods  emphasized 
for  dairies?  Describe  a  modern  dairy.  Explain  the  growth  of  the  cheese  and 
butter  industry.    Where  are  the  centers  of  the  dairy  industry  ? 

CHAPTER  X 
SWINE  AND   SHEEP 

Where  were  hogs  found  in  colonial  days?  How  did  their  quality  compare 
with  that  of  to-day?  Where  is  pork  eaten?  Name  some  of  the  best  breeds  of 
swine.    How  were  they  developed?    Why  was  swine  production  closely  related 


406  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

to  slavery  ?  What  is  meant  by  "  corn  t)n  the  hoof '"  ?  Why  is  it  valuable  ? 
What  cities  are  associated  with  pork-packing  ?  Why  is  the  corn  belt  identical 
with  the  swine  belt?    Where  is  it? 

What  is  the  difference  between  a  lard  hog  and  a  bacon  hog?  Where  is 
each  found  ?  Where  are  the  most  hogs  raised  ?  How  much  of  the  hog  is  used  in 
the  packing  plant?  What  are  some  of  the  uses?  the  by-products?  In  what 
forms  is  the  meat  prepared  for  market  ? 

What  three  uses  had  sheep  in  ancient  times?  Who  brought  the  first 
domestic  sheep  to  America?  Where  was  colonial  sheep-raising  most  profit- 
able ?  Why  ?  What  sheep  give  the  best  wool  ?  What  was  the  Ancon  breed  ? 
What'  are  the  superior  points  of  the  merino?  Why  are  there  not  more 
merinos  in  this  country  ?  For  what  is  the  karakul  sheep  valued  ?  Explain  the 
gradual  rise  in  importance  of  the  mutton  breeds.  What  value  had  a  "fat-tailed 
sheep"?  Where  are  the  greatest  numbers  of  mutton  breeds?  In  how  many 
states  are  sheep  found  ?    Where  are  the  greatest  numbers  now  ? 

What  two  countries  surpass  ours  in  numbers  of  sheep?  How  important  is 
rainfall  to  sheep-raising?  How  many  classes  of  wool  are  there?  How  often 
are  sheep  sheared  ?  What  success  has  the  breeder  had  in  increasing  the  weight 
of  a  fleece?    How  much  wool  do  we  import? 

CHAPTER  XI 
HORSES  AND  MULES 

By  what  different  nations  were  horses  first  introduced  into  the  United 
States?  What  is  the  origin  of  the  typical  American  horse?  When  was  the 
stock  greatly  improved  ?  What  is  the  best  breed  of  farm  horse  ?  of  draft  horse  ? 
What  was  one  of  the  reasons  for  road  improvements  ?  How  did  the  horse-car 
system  raise  and  then  lower  the  demand  for  cheap  horses  ?  What  kept  up  the 
demand  for  horses  in  the  country?  Where  are  the  horse-raising  districts? 
What  other  value  has  the  horse  than  for  transportation  ? 

What  is  a  mule  ?  Where  is  the  mule  used  mostly  ?  How  does  it  compare 
with  a  horse  ?  Where  is  the  mule  particularly  adapted  for  labor  ?  How  many 
mules  are  in  this  country?    What  is  their  value? 

CHAPTER  XII 
FISHERIES 

What  influence  has  fishing  had  on  our  history?  Why  did  Massachusetts 
become  a  center  of  this  industry  ?  What  town  in  particular  was  and  still  is 
devoted  to  it  ?   Where  are  the  two  great  fishing  grounds  of  the  world  ?    Why 


QUESTIONS  FOR  REVIEW  407 

did  New  England  hold  a  monopoly  of  the  fishing  trade  for  so  long?  What 
other  industries  grew  out  of  this  supremacy?  How  does  fishing  aid  in  devel- 
oping other  maritime  interests,  merchant  marine,  etc.  ?  What  two  well-known 
books  were  written  about  this  fishing  life  ? 

What  are  fishing  rights  ?  What  besides  food  is  derived  from  the  fisheries  ? 
How  important  are  our  fisheries  ?  Trace  the  beginnings  of  the  whaling  indus- 
try. What  places  are  associated  with  this  industry?  What  factors  led  to  a 
decline  in  whaling?  What  states  have  led  in  the  cod-fishing  industry?  Why 
is  cod-fishing  yielding  to  inshore  fishing? 

What  was  the  first  use  for  mackerel?  When  were  mackerel  first  salted? 
What  effect  did  this  have  on  the  industry?  What  state  is  the  center  of  the 
industry?  Name  six  other  important  fisheries  of  New  England.  How  has 
the  use  of  ice  changed  the  character  of  fishing? 

How  long  did  New  England  remain  supreme  in  the  fishing  industry?  What 
other  sections  are  now  in  the  market  ?  What  kinds  of  fish  do  these  supply  ? 
What  are  the  products  of  the  Gulf  fisheries?  What  state  leads?  What  fish 
are  found  on  the  Pacific  coast?  What  kind  is  most  prominent  commercially? 
Where  is  the  great  fur-seal  breeding  ground  ?  What  interest  has  the  govern- 
ment in  it  ?  Where  are  oysters  found  ?  What  per  cent  of  the  world's  supply 
do  we  "furnish  ?  What  are  some  of  the  duties  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Fisheries  ?    How  important  are  our  fisheries  ? 


CHAPTER  XIII 
COAL  AND  PETROLEUM 

What  are  some  of  the  differences  between  minerals  and  the  plant  and  ani- 
mal products?  What  conditions  are  necessary  to  the  successful  operation  of 
a  mine?  How  are  minerals  classified?  Name  some  belonging  to  each  class. 
Which  has  the  greatest  value  in  our  annual  output?  Why  is  mining  a  primary 
rather  than  a  secondary  industry  ? 

What  is  coal  ?  Describe  the  different  kinds.  Where  is  each  mined  ?  When 
did  coal  come  into  common  use  in  this  country?  What  was  the  first  extensive 
use  of  coal  in  industry?  How  did  the  railways  develop  the  bituminous-coal 
industry?  How  is  coke  prepared?  Where  is  its  greatest  use?  What  propor- 
tion of  our  supply  remains  to  be  mined?  How  much  coal  is  consumed  per 
capita  ?  What  are  some  of  the  ways  in  which  coal  is  wasted  ?  Why  is  coal 
indispensable  now?    Why  is  economy  in  the  use  of  coal  necessary? 

How  long  has  petroleum  been  known?  In  what  places  was  it  in  early  use? 
For  what  purpose  was  Seneca  oil  used  ?  By  whom  was  petroleum  regarded  as 
a  nuisance,  and  why?  What  was  the  first  oil  company?  Where  did  it  operate? 
When  did  the  rc:\\  oil  era  begin? 


40S  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

CHAPTER  XIV 
IRON 

About  how  long  has  iron  been  known?  What  mineral  alone  surpasses 
it  in  abundance?  When  was  it  used  in  America  first?  Describe  smelting. 
What  is  the  difference  between  wrought  iron  and  cast  iron  ?  What  were  the 
first  iron  beds  to  be  worked  in  this  country  ?  Why  was  the  industry  small  up 
to  I  See?  Describe  the  growth  in  production  to  i860.  What  factors  made 
Pennsylvania  a  great  iron-producing  state?  How  did  the  use  of  bituminous 
coal  change  this? 

Where  are  the  great  iron-mining  regions  of  the  United  States  ?  What  cor- 
poration owns  a  large  proportion  of  them  ?  Why  is  this  a  great  iron  age  ? 
W^hat  is  our  present  production  of  pig  iron?  its  value?  its  relation  to  the 
world's  production?  What  factors  have  enabled  the  United  States  to  surpass 
all  countries  in  the  iron  industry?  How  did  the  Great  War  show  the  value 
of  iron  ? 

CHAPTER  XV 

GOLD  AND    SILVER 

Where  is  gold  found?  In  what  forms?  What  two  qualities  does  it  possess 
that  have  made  it  a  favorite  metal?  Why  is  gold  not  used  more  freely  for 
coins?  W^hat  metals  take  its  place  for  these?  What  was  the  "  Silver  Fleet'"? 
What  would  a  great  increase  in  the  production  of  gold  lead  to  ?    Why  ? 

Describe  the  processes  of  obtaining  gold.  How  has  our  gold  industry 
developed?    What  states  lead  in  production? 

Why  did  silver  have  such  a  high  value  ?  Where  was  it  known  in  America  ? 
What  was  the  state  of  early  colonial  silver-mining?  When  was  the  largest 
deposit  in  the  world  found?  Where?  What  is  the  story  of  the  Comstock 
Lode?  What  states  lead  in  the  production  of  silver?  How  may  silver  illus- 
trate the  power  of  national  resources  over  national  affairs?  How  is  silver  a 
by-product  ?    For  what  is  silver  largely  used  ? 

CHAPTER  XVI 

OTHER  MINERALS 

Name  ten  of  the  lesser  minerals.  What  metal  is  second  only  to  iron? 
Where  is  it  used  mostly  ?  What  forms  bronze  ?  brass  ?  How  did  the  Indians 
mine  and  use  copper?  In  what  Eastern  states  was  copper  found  ?  What  three 
states  enable  us  to  lead  the  world  in  copper  production  ? 

In  what  forms  is  lead  found  ?  In  what  states  is  it  extensively  mined  ?  Why 
is  the  zinc  industry  comparatively  new?    What  state  produces  the  most  zinc? 


QUESTIONS   FOR  REVIEW  409 

What  are  the  valuable  properties  of  aluminum  ?    What  is  aiding  its  greater 
production  ?    What  are  some  of  its  important  uses  ? 

How  was  clay  first  used  ?  How  important  is  the  industry  now  ?  With  what 
industry  is  it  closely  connected?  What  are  the  principal  stones  quarried? 
What  are  the  three  types  of  cement?  For  what  are  they  used?  In  what 
minerals  are  we  deficient? 

CHAPTER  XVII 

ADVANTAGES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES   FOR  MANIJFACTURING, 
AND  THE   LOCALIZATION  OF   INDUSTRIES 

What  is  meant  by  manufacture?  Give  examples.  When  did  the  great 
manufacturing  period  of  our  country  begin  ?  What  are  some  of  the  causes  for 
increased  manufacture?  Name  the  five  leading  manufacturing  states.  What 
are  our  four  great  classes  of  manufactured  goods  ?  How  large  a  value  do  they 
represent?  In  what  resources  are  we  rich?  What  part  has  water  transporta- 
tion played  in  our  development?  What  is  the  greatest  internal  waterway  in 
the  world  ? 

What  is  meant  by  freedom  of  trade  in  the  United  States  ?  W^hat  developed 
the  tendency  to  seek  out  the  best  and  quickest  ways  in  commercial  industry  ? 
What  is  meant  by  mobility  of  labor  ?  How  has  this  influenced  American  pro- 
duction ?  Why  can  American  labor  be  independent  ?  What  influence  has  our 
form  of  government  had  on  our  industrial  success  ? 

What  seven  factors  determine  where  an  industry  shall  locate?  What  five 
states  produce  a  large  proportion  of  our  manufactures  ?  What  is  one  reason 
for  this?  What  advantages  did  New  England  have  for  manufacturing?  How 
does  climate  influence  labor  efficiency  ?  Why  must  manufacturing  plants  be 
located  in  thickly  settled  regions?  Why  do  we  have  specialization  of  indus- 
tries in  different  sections  of  the  United  States?  How  does  New  Bedford 
illustrate  the  change  in  source  of  capital  for  our  industries  ?  What  cities  owe 
their  success  to  an  early  start  in  their  particular  industries?  Name  the 
respective  industry  in  several  of  our  states. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
FOOD  AND   KINDRED   PRODUCTS 

What  is  the  most  important  group  in  the  American  industries?  Into  what 
two  divisions  is  it  separated?  What  is  the  most  important  product  in  the 
animal-products  group?  How  were  pork  products  marketed  from  the  West? 
What  city  leads  in  this  industry?  What  effect  has  competition  had  on  this 
industrv  ? 


410  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

Why  is  flour  manufacture  the  most  important  of  the  vegetable-products 
group?  Describe  the  process  of  milHng.  Where  were  the  milling  centers 
before  the  Revolution  ?  in  the  early  nineteenth  century  ?  Why  has  the  center 
moved  westward?  What  caused  the  decline  of  St.  Louis  as  a  shipping  port 
for  flour?  Describe  the  growth  of  Minneapolis  as  a  flour  city.  Describe  the 
improved  process  of  milling.  How  important  is  flour  as  an  export?  How 
valuable  is  the  industry  of  our  flour  and  grist  mills? 

What  are  some  of  the  other  industries  dependent  upon  vegetable  materials  ? 
In  what  ways  ha,ve  we  wasted  food? 

CHAPTER  XIX 

METALLIC   PRODUCTS 

Why  can  the  use  of  metals  be  taken  as  an  index  of  a  people's  civilization  ? 
What  state  and  city  lead  in  iron  manufacture?  What  factors  gave  England 
the  supremacy  for  a  long  time?  What  did  Sir  Henry  Bessemer  do  for  this 
industry  ?    What  is  the  work  of  a  foundry  ?  a  rolling-mill  ? 

Name  some  of  the  special  products  of  the  foundry.  In  what  cities  are  tools 
made?  cutlery?  For  what  is  New  England  prominent  in  this  industry? 
How  have  mechanical  devices  affected  this  industry?  What  is  meant  by 
standardization  of  parts? 

Where  were  our  first  railroad  engines  made?  What  kind  of  engines  were 
built  in  this  country  ?  Where  were  the  plants  usually  located  ?  When  were 
locomotives  first  built  in  the  United  States?    W'here? 

In  what  states  were  silverware  and  jewelry  manufactured  at  first?  How 
important  is  the  metal  manufacture  of  the  United  States? 

CHAPTER  XX 
TEXTILES 

What  three  things  are  included  under  textile  industries  ?  What  are  the  four 
leading  materials  manufactured  in  this  country  ?  What  cloth  was  made  in 
colonial  days?  How  much?  Trace  the  development  of  the  linen  industry  in 
the  United  States.  Why  was  there  so  little  early  woolen  manufacturing? 
What  factors  hindered  its  development  later?  How  great  an  industry  do  we 
have  to-day  ?    Where  is  the  greatest  amount  of  woolen  manufacturing  ? 

What  hindered  the  construction  of  textile  manufacturing  machinery  in  the 
United  States?  Where  were  the  first  cotton  factories?  In  what  section  of  the 
country  did  the  factory  system  develop  ?  Describe  the  growth  of  cotton  manu- 
facturing up  to  the  Civil  War.    How  has  this  industry  recently  developed  in 


QUESTIONS   FOR  REVIEW  411 

the  South?    What  advantages  tor  this  industry  does  the  South  have?    New 
England  ?    What  are  the  five  leading  states  for  cotton  manufacture  ? 

Where  were  the  first  attempts  at  silk-raising  in  this  country  ?  Why  was  it 
generally  unsuccessful  ?  Why  were  Americans  more  successful  in  silk  manu- 
facturing? What  branch  of  silk  manufacture  was  most  in  demand?  How 
much  has  this  industry  grown  since  the  Civil  War  ?  What  other  fiber  is 
manufactured  here?   For  what  is  it  used? 


CHAPTER  XXI 
LUMBER   AXn    PAPER 

Why  are  great  forest  areas  an  advantage  to  a  country?  How  do  we  rank 
in  forest  resources?  Why  was  the  invention  of  the  sawmill  so  important  to 
the  colonist?  What  business  grew  out  of  land  development?  How  did  the 
steam  sawmill  change  the  character  of  lumbering?  In  what  sections  has 
large-scale  production  been  developed?  What  caused  a  shifting  of  the  loca- 
tion of  this  industry?  What  are  our  leading  woods?  How  important  is  the 
industry? 

What  is  a  planing  mill  ?  Describe  the  development  of  the  furniture  in- 
dustry. What  woods  have  been  popular  for  furniture?  What  are  some  arti- 
cles of  American  origin?  What  cities  are  the  largest  manufacturers  of 
furniture  ?    What  states  lead  in  value  of  production  ? 

About  how  long  has  paper-making  been  known?  Why  was  its  use  so 
restricted  ?  From  what  materials  has  paper  been  made  ?  Where  were  the 
early  paper  factories  in  the  colonies?  What  effect  has  machinery  had  upon 
paper-making?  Describe  the  process  of  preparing  wood  pulp.  Where  are  the 
greatest  paper-manufacturing  districts  in  the  United  States?  What  factors 
led  to  this?  What  city  is  the  center  for  paper-making  from  textiles?  Where 
does  this  country  rank  as  a  producer  of  paper?  Trace  the  development  of  the 
wall-paper  industry.    What  are  some  of  the  modern  uses  of  paper? 

CHAPTER  XXII 

LEATHER  AND  RUBBER 

How  did  the  Indian  women  tan  leather?  In  what  ways  did  Massachusetts 
regulate  the  tanning  industry  in  colonial  days?  Describe  tanning.  For  what 
are  heavy  hides  used ?  calfskins?  sheepskins?  goatskins?  dogskins?  pigskins? 
horsehides  ?    What  are  some  of  the  other  skins  used  ? 

What  is  the  greatest  use  of  leather?  Describe  the  method  of  colonial  slinr- 
making.    Why  do  wc  import  so  many  hides?    What  is  the  history  dI  Lynn 


412  INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE 

shoemaking ?  What  has  influenced  the  improvements  in  American  shoes? 
What  are  some  of  the  machines  used?  What  Massachusetts  cities  manufacture 
shoes?    Name  five  other  centers  of  this  industry.   Where  is  the  main  market? 

How  vaUiablc  is  the  saddle-  and  harness-making  industry?  Where  are  most 
of  our  gloves  manufactured  ?  What  is  the  present  condition  of  the  leather  trade  ? 

Where  is  rubber  found?  What  was  its  first  use?  How  is  rubber  vulcan- 
ized? What  is  the  process  called?  What  effect  did  the  discovery  of  this 
process  have  on  the  industry?  Where  are  our  rubber  factories?  What  have 
been  some  of  the  factors  in  raising  the  demand  for  rubber?  What  is  vulcanite? 
For  what  is  it  used?  Wliat  is  the  leading  branch  of  the  rubber  industry? 
Which  state  leads  in  the  manufacture  of  rubber  footwear?  Name  some  of  the 
important  articles  made  from  rubber.  What  is  artificial  rubber  called?  What 
use  is  made  of  old  rubber? 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

CHEMICALS  AND  DYESTUFFS 

What  part  does  chemistry  play  in  the  commercial  world?  Where  did  the 
manufacturing  of  chemicals  start  in  this  country  ?  What  was  the  first  product  ? 
What  reason  is  assigned  for  the  slow  development  of  the  industry?  What 
effect  has  the  Great  War  had  on  this? 

For  what  is  sodium  bicarbonate  used  ?  How  is  much  of  it  obtained  ?  W' hat 
are  the  three  essential  plant  foods?  Where  is  phosphorus  obtained?  What 
was  the  earliest  form  of  fertilizing?  W^hy  has  the  manufacture  of  fertilizers 
become  so  important  ?  Where  has  potash  been  found  in  our  country  ?  When 
was  the  manufacture  of  potash  salts  started  in  the  United  States  ?  What  is  its 
importance  ? 

From  what  is  nitrogen  obtained  ?  What  are  the  future  prospects  of  chemi- 
cally produced  fertilizers?  Of  what  value  is  electricity  in  chemical  industries? 
How  are  soaps  and  oils  made?    What  is  obtained  from  coal  tar? 

What  was  the  source  of  the  earliest  dye  known?  What  is  a  natural  dye- 
stuff?  When  were  aniline  dyes  discovered?  What  stimulated  the  coal-tar 
industry  in  America?  With  what  result?  Where  is  the  bulk  of  our  artificial 
dyes  obtained  at  present? 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

ELECTRICAL  MACHINERY  AND  APPARATUS 

When  was  the  electrical  industry  first  reported  as  a  separate  industry? 
What  has  been  its  growth  since  that  time?  What  is  the  use  of  dynamos? 
What  two  types  are  there?  When  did  the  electric  motor  begin  to  play  an 
important  part  in  industry?  What  are  some  of  the  uses  of  the  motor?  Where 
are  storage  batteries  extensively  used?    How  have  they  increased  in  value? 


QUESTIONS   FOR  REVIEW  413 

What  is  the  difference  between  an  arc  lamp  and  an  incandescent  lamp? 
Which  is  increasing  in  use  for  general  lighting  purposes?  How  much  has 
the  manufacture  of  telephone  apparatus  increased  since  1 900  ?  What  was  one 
of  the  causes  of  this  increase  ?  What  are  some  of  the  electric  heating  devices  ? 
What  relation  is  there  between  water  power  and  electric  power?  What  six 
states  supply  most  of  our  electrical  apparatus? 

CHAPTER  XXV 
BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  TRANSPORTATION  SYSTEM 

WJhy  does  distribution  become  so  important  in  our  industrial  development  ? 
What  were  the  beginnings  of  trade?  i\,]hat  effect  has  rapid  transportation 
had  on  our  national  resources?  How  was  most  of  the  Indian  transportation 
carried  on  ?  What  was  the  reason  for  this  ?  What  types  of  canoes  did  the 
Indians  have?  What  have  many  of  the  Indian  trails  developed  into?  Why  have 
important  railroads  followed  Indian  trails?    What  was  the  Indian  "  travois  "? 

Why  were  the  early  settlements  in  this  country  on  waterways  ?  What  effect 
did  the  Appalachian  Mountains  have  on  settlement?  What  factors  retarded 
the  building  of  intercolonial  roads?  What  was  the  condition  of  roads  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution?    How  was  most  traveling  done? 

Describe  the  early  postal  service.  What  led  to  the  establishment  of  ferries? 
of  bridges?  Who  generally  owned  them?  What  states  owned  most  of  the  colo 
nial  tonnage?  What  types  of  boats  were  used  on  the  seacoast?  on  inland 
waters?  What  was  the  common  history  of  a  river  flatboat?  When  did  the 
steamboat  become  the  general  carrier  on  all  waters? 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

TURNPIKES  AND  CANALS 

Why  were  private  citizens  interested  in  ways  of  transportation?  Where  was 
the  first  turnpike?  Who  were  the  stockholders  in  such  turnpikes?  What 
authority  had  the  state  over  them?  In  what  section  of  the  country  were  most 
of  the  turnpikes  built?  Were  they  profitable  investments ?  Why?  \\'hat  part 
did  roads  and  bridges  play  in  the  high  cost  of  transportation  ? 

What  did  (iallatin's  report  show  about  the  cost  and  number  of  roads  in  this 
country?  What  were  some  of  the  projects  he  advocated?  Which  of  these 
projects  have  since  been  carried  out?  Where  was  the  Cumberland  Road?  Of 
what  importance  was  it?  Why  was  the  Wilderness  Road  important?  What 
effect  has  the  automobile  had  on  roads  ? 

Whenj^as  the  great  period  of  canal-building?  What  class  of  pcoi)k'  were 
especially  interested  in  easier  communication  with  the  West?    When  was  the 


414  INDrS'lRV   AND    I'RADE 

Kiie  Canal  completed?  W  hat  gave  New  \  ork  such  an  advantage  over  Tenn 
svlvania  in  the  matter  ot  a  route  tu  the  West?  What  did  the  states  hope  to 
get  from  canals?  What  causes  led  to  their  failure?  Why  has  the  Erie  Canal 
proved  successful?  How  is  it  now  used?  What  is  the  history  of  the  Panama 
Canal  ? 

Why  is  the  use  of  canals  being  urged  again?  How  will  their  use  aid  in 
conser\-ation  ?  When  did  the  states  begin  to  withdraw  from  actively  aiding 
transportation  projects  ?    Wh}'  ? 

CHAPTER  XXVI 1 
RAILROADS 

Where  were  the  first  attempts  at  railroad  construction  ?  Who  built  the  first 
successful  locomotive  engine?  What  was  the  first  railroad  in  the  United 
States?  Describe  its  cars.  Name  some  of  the  other  early  lines.  What  stood 
in  the  way  of  railroad  systems?  Why  were  engineering  difficulties  so  much 
greater  here  than  in  England  ?  Describe  the  early  locomotives.  What  retarded 
the  growth  of  railroads  ? 

What  city  was  the  first  railroad  center?  What  were  the  first  lines  reaching 
toward  the  W'est?  What  are  trunk  lines?  Upon  what  were  they  constructed ? 
What  two  roads  joined  to  make  the  first  transcontinental  line?  What  part 
did  the  railroads  have  in  the  panic  of  1873?  In  what  sections  of  the  country 
was  the  greatest  amount  of  construction  after  1873?  W^hat  is  the  present 
relation  between  mileage  and  traffic?  What  proportion  of  the  world's  mileage 
is  in  our  country  ? 

How  do  the  present  railroad  rates  compare  with  the  early  rates?  Upon 
what  does  a  railroad  depend  for  its  revenue?  What  are  the  advantages  of 
electric  railways?    How  has  the  railroad  aided  American  industry? 

CHAPTER  XXVHI 
NATURAL  WATERWAYS  AND  THE  MERCHANT  MARINE 

In  what  ways  are  natural  waterways  important  in  the  development  of  indus- 
try? Why  do  we  lack  statistics  on  the  traffic  on  natural  waterways?  What 
are  the  two  great  natural  systems  in  America?  To  whom  have  they  been 
of  great  use  ?  W'hat  hindered  traffic  on  the  Mississippi  ?  W'hat  two  events 
greatly  influenced  river  navigation  ?  W^hat  were  the  requirements  of  a  success- 
ful river  steamboat?  W^hat  has  been  the  relation  between  steamboat  traffic 
and  the  railroads  ?    What  effect  did  the  Civil  War  have  on  this  competition  ? 

Give  two  important  features  of  traffic  on  the  lower  Mississippi.  What  does 
the  Great  Lakes  System  include?   What  is  its  one  great  drawback?   What 


QUESTIONS  FOR  RE\'IE\V  415 

have  the  Canadian  and  American  governments  done  to  improve  this  system  ? 
Of  what  does  most  of  the  Lake  traffic  consist  ?  Name  two  important  Lake 
cities.  Why  is  the  freight  rate  so  much  less  than  on  the  railroads?  How 
extensive  are  our  inland  waterways?    What  is  the  ideal  system? 

What  is  the  merchant  marine?  Why  were  the  colonists  so  interested  in 
shipping?  \\'hat  trade  did  they  have  with  the  West  Indies?  What  training 
did  the  early  merchant  seamen  need?  What  type  of  ship  did  they  evolve? 
In  what  three  branches  was  our  merchant  fleet  engaged  in  the  eighteenth 
century  ?    What  led  to  our  becoming  the  carrying  nation  of  the  world  ? 

What  caused  the  development  of  the  clipper  ship?  Why  were  our  sailing 
vessels  in  such  demand?  What  were  some  of  the  causes  of  the  decline  in 
ships?  What  is  the  present  state  of  our  shipping?  Why  hasn't  the  steamer 
entirely  superseded  the  sailing  ship  ? 

Why  were  we  slower  than  England  in  changing  to  steel  ships  ?  How  do 
terminals  limit  the  size  of  our  ships?  In  what  way  docs  coastwise  shipping 
differ  from  foreign  shipping  ?  What  has  figured  largely  in  its  development  ? 
What  are  the  probabilities  of  a  large  merchant  marine? 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  TRANSPORTATION   UPON  AMERICAN 
INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT 

_How  are  trade  and  transportation  each  dependent  upon  the  other?  In  what 
way  has  the  trader  spread  ci\  ilization  ?  How  has  transportation  been  the  key- 
note of  our  industrial  success?  How  has  our  territorial  division  of  labor  been 
made  possible  by  transportation  ?  Why  have  railroads  increased  property 
values  in  this  country  so  much  more  than  in  England? 

How  do  city  land  values  depend  upon  transportation?  What  political  value 
have  good  transportation  facilities?  Show  how  good  transportation  means  a 
lowering  of  prices.  What  did  contemporary  men  think  of  cheaper  transporta- 
tion? How  do  twentieth-century  rates  and  nineteenth-century  rates  compare? 
What  has  made  low  rates  possible  ?  What  effect  did  the  Erie  Canal  have 
on  transportation  rates?  What  factors  have  aided  in  the  improvement  of 
communication  ? 

CHAPTER  XXX 

INTERNATIONAL  COMPETITION  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  AND 
i  COMMERCIAL  SUPREMAC^■ 

By  what  means  may  industry  be  stimulated?  When'  was  tiie  first  great 
struggle  for  trade  supremacy?  In  what  field  was  the  rivalry  of  Portugal  and 
Spain?    Where  did  England  .stand  in  the  struggle  for  the  world's  markets? 


4i6  INDl  SIRV  AM)  TRADE 

What  advantages  has  England  had  for  supremacy  ?  What  two  nations  are 
her  competitors?  Name  the  tive  leading  commercial  countries.  What  changes 
has  this  century  brought  about  in  commercial  and  industrial  methods? 

vHow  will  science  applied  to  industry  help  to  eliminate  failure?  What  is 
the  method  that  science  uses?  What  is  meant  by  "margin  of  superiority"? 
How  is  it  figured  out?  How  will  scientific  management  benefit  industry?  By 
what  means  does  the  English  government  aid  the  English  business  man? 
How  does  the  German  method  differ  from  the  English?  Why  were  we  so 
late  in  developing  interest  in  foreign  commerce  ?  How  has  our  consular 
service  been  reformed  ?  Of  what  aid  are  business  men's  organizations  ?  What 
is  the  National  Chamber  of  Commerce  ?  its  duties  ?  Why  is  efficiency  so 
necessary  ? 

CHAPTER  XXXI 

MARKETING 

Why  has  production  always  been  the  first  step  in  industry  ?  Why  were 
there  no  problems  of  marketing  in  colonial  days?  What  is  the  distinction 
between  a  fair  and  a  market?  How  was  the  county  fair  a  forerunner  of  the 
market?  What  is  the  weekly  market?  What  was  the  position  of  the  local 
store  in  commerce? 

_Why  has  the  modern  market  become  necessary  ?  \yhy  is  the  marketing  of 
farm  products  of  prime  importance?  Why  are  middlemen  necessary?  How 
does  purchasing  power  vary  in  our  country  and  affect  marketing?  Name 
several  distributing  agencies.  Explain  the  three  stages  of  marketing.  What 
products  cannot  be  sold  by  description  ?  • 

What  is  the  function  of  a  middleman  ?  Why  does  export  trade  demand 
greater  attention  than  domestic  trade?  Explain  the  difference  between  direct/ 
and  indirect  trade.  W'hat  is  the  duty  of  a  branch  corporation  ?  What  are  the 
duties  of  a  forwarding  agent?  the  advantages?  Why  is  it  so  necessary  to 
know  the  tastes  of  foreign  consumers? 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE  FINANCING  OF  INDUSTRY  AND  THE  DEVELOPMENT 
OF  CORPORATIONS 

\Vhy  is  capital  so  important  to  industry?  What  capital  did  the  American 
colonists  have?  Why  was  litde  money  invested  in  manufacturing  by  the 
colonists?  How  did  this  situation  change  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries?    In  what  type  of  enterprise  did  the  colonists  usually  invest? 


QUESTIONS  FOR  REVIEW  417 

What  was  the  beginning  of  the  small  corporations  of  New  England?  How 
did  the  government  aid  in  developing  manufactures?  Where  did  the  capital 
come  from  that  aided  our  industrial  development  ? 

How  did  corporations  develop  ?  What  are  their  characteristics  ?  What  fac- 
tors have  aided  their  growth?  What  part  is  the  corporation  taking  in  our 
business  life?  How  has  the  character  of  industry  changed  since  the  Civil  War? 
W^hy  was  combination  necessary?  How  was  competition  wasteful?  Why  is 
large-scale  production  more  economical  ? 

What  are  four  advantages  of  corporation  ?  Why  are  these  not  found  in  the 
individual  system  ?    \\'hat  are  some  disadvantages  ? 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 
LABOR  ADJUSTMENTS 

How  has  labor  influenced  the  progress  of  civilization  ?  How  was  scarcity  of 
labor  first  overcome  in  the  American  colonies?  What  was  the  character  of 
the  first  servants?  How  has  immigration  developed  manufacture?  Why  did 
most  laborers  prefer  agriculture  ?  W^hat  hope  did  American  industry  hold  out 
to  skilled  labor  ?    From  what  countries  did  many  of  these  men  come  ? 

What  were  some  of  the  improvements  brought  into  use  by  skilled  work- 
men ?  Where  was  unskilled  labor  in  demand?  What  opportunity  has  the 
immigrant  in  this  country?  What  has  he  done  for  the  country?  What  wages 
did  the  unskilled  workman  receive  in  the  last  century  ? 

What  caused  the  first  labor  movement?  When  did  the  trade-union  move- 
ment develop?  What  has  tended  to  separate  labor  and  capital?  What  did 
the  early  labor  legislation  have  in  view?  What  brought  the  labor  unions  to 
public  attention?  When  did  this  occur?  In  what  ways  have  labor  conditions 
improved  in  late  years?    Why  are  capital  and  labor  interdependent? 

What  is  meant  by  employers'  liability  ?  WHiy  should  accidents  to  workmen 
be  classed  as  a  social  problem  ?  W' hat  three  defenses  enabled  an  employer 
to  escape  liability  for  accidents?  What  principle  is  behind  the  workmen's 
compensation  laws? 

What  protection  does  the  employer  have  against  the  expenses  of  accident 
claims?  What  is  group  life  insurance?  What  effect  has  it  had  on  the  relation 
between  employer  and  employee?    What  effect  has  it  had  on  production? 


INDEX 


Accidents,  industrial,  393 

Acids,  275 

Adaptability,  American,  199 

Agriculture,  attractions  of,  387 ;  de- 
pendent on  environment,  55;  foun- 
dation of  industry,  55 ;  and  rainfall, 
1 1  ;  in  the  United  States,  56 

Alpaca,  107 

Altitude,  factor  in  temperature,  9 

Aluminum,  26,  j88 

American    industries,     promotion     of. 

353-399 

American  shipping,  golden  era  (jf.  341 

American  type,  44 

Aniline  dyes,  282 

Animal  industries,  105-152 

Animal  and  plant  life.  31 

Animals,  breeding  of.  106;  domestica- 
tion of,  105;  killing  of,  105 

Appalachian  Mountains,  16 

Apples,  77 ;  cultivation  of,  78 

Arc  lamp,  287 

Asphalt,  165 

Atlantic-coast  fisheries,  148 

Atlantic  Coastal  Plain,  15 

Automobile  tires,  271 

Bacon  hog,  122 

Bakery.  220 

FJarley,  65 ;  production  of,  66 

Carriers  to  communication,  298 

Heans,  74;  production  of,  75 

Beef,  export  of  fresh,  1 13 

iieet  sugar,  87  ;  production  of,  88 

IJenzene.  165 

Bessemer,  .Sir  Henry,  224 

Bessemer  process,  224 

Hison,  107 

Blackberries,  82 

Boot  and  shoe  industry,  improvements 
in,  264  ;  machines  for,  264 ;  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, 263,  265 ;  rapid  develop- 
ment of,  265 ;  in  the  West,  265 

Hoots  and  shoes,  205,  261 


Branch  corporations,  373 

Breeds,  lack  of  American,  107 ;  origin 

of  best,  107 
Bridge  companies.  306 
liridges  and  ferries,  301 
Buckwheat,  69 

Bureau  of  Engraving  and  Printing,  283 
Business  men's  organizations,  361 
Business  unit,  increase  in  size  of.  380 
Butter,  117 
By-products  of  cottonseed.  104 

(anal  era.  312;   and  the  railroad  era. 

317 

Canals,  310-31G;  craze  for  building. 
310;  link  between  East  and  West. 
310;  popularity  of,  312;  transpor- 
tation rates  on,  351 

Candles,  165 

Canning  industry,  82 

Canoe  journeys,  293 

Canoes,  types  of,  294 

Capital,  call  for,  378;  colonial.  375; 
early  demand  small.  377;  growth  of 
American.  376  ;  importance  of.  375;<1L- 
and  labor,  392  ;  post-Revolution  con- 
ditions of.  377  ;  scarcity'  in  new  coun- 
tries, 375;  supply  of.  204 

Carbon,  1 1 

Carroll,  Charles.  318,  319 

Catgut,  128 

Cattle,  105-117;  neglect  of,  108 

Cattle  states.  109 

Cattle-raising,  beginnings  of  American. 
107  ;  progress  of  industry,  1 1 1  ;  west- 
ward movement  of,  108 

Causes  of  our  manufacturing  success. 
196-200 

Cement,  26.  191  ;  value  in  the  United 
.States,  192 

Centers  of  dairy  industry.  117 

Central  Forest,  28 

Central  Lowlands.  17 

('ereals,  (,$-(«) 


419 


430 


INDUS  I'RV  AM)    TRADK 


Cheese,  1 17 

Chemical    industries,    2S0 ;    expansion 

of,  275 
Chemicals,    273-jSo;    manulacture  of, 

274 
Chemistry,  practical  value  of,  273 
Cherries,  S2 

Chicago,  meat-packing  center,  211 
Chili,  source  of  nitrate,  280 
Civil  liberty,  200 
Civil  War,   effect  on   cotton  industry, 

95;  effect  on  railways,  324,  325 
Civilization  and  trade.  345 
Clarifying  of  sugar,  90.  91 
Clay,  26 
Clay  industry,  products,  1S9;  value  of, 

1 89 
Climate,  factor  in  manufacturing,  203 ; 

factor  in  production.  8  ;  influence  on 

immigration,  36;  and  soil,  12 
Clipper  ships,  American,  340 
Clydesdale,  134 
Coal,   23,   155-160,    197;    consumption 

of,  158;  development  of  production, 

158;  early  uses  of.    155;  hard,   155; 

indispensable,    159;    nature  of,   155; 

need  to  use  economically,  160;  and 

the  railroads.  157;  soft,  155;  used  to 

smelt  iron,  i  56  ;  waste  and  conser\' a- 

tion  of,  I  58 
Coal-tar  dyes,  282 
Coastwise  fleet,  343 
Cod-fishing,  146 
Coinage,  174,  181 
Coke,  158 

Collars  and  cuffs,  205 
Colonial  roads,  299 
Colonial  shipbuilding,  339 
Colonists  as  seafarers,  338 
Coloring,  popularity  of.  281 
Colt,  Samuel,  207 
Combination,  economies  of,  38 1 
Communication,  barriers  to,  298 ;  and 

transportation,  351  ^ 
Compensation,  evasion  of,  394 
Competition,  wastes  of,  381 
Comstock  Lode,  180 
Conestoga,  135 

Confectionery,  manufacture  of,  220 
Connecticut,  firearms  manufactured  in, 

206 
Conservation  of  natural  resources,  21 
Consular  service,  American,  360 
Copper,  26,  182;  early  mining  of,  183; 

Michigan    deposits,    185;     Montana 


discoveries,    1S6;    used  by   Indians, 

Corn.  57-59;  export  of,  59;  food  for 
hogs,  120;  industries  connected  with, 
63;  production  of,  59;   in  the  West, 

58 

Corporations,  378-384  ;  advantages  of, 
3S2-384;  beginnings  of,  378;  condi- 
tions favoring  growth  of,  379 ;  disad- 
vantages of,  384  ;  extension  of,  380 ; 
inevitable,  380  ;  nature  of,  379 

Cotton,  92-104  ;  American  upland.  96; 
conditions  of  raising,  92  ;  harvesting, 
97  ;  nature  of  plant,  96  ;  preparation 
for  market,  98 ;  production  of,  93  ; 
varieties  of,  95 

Cotton  belt,  95 

Cotton  cities,  104 

Cotton  gin,  94 

Cotton  industry,  236-241 ;  after  the 
Civil  War,  239;  development  in  the 
South,  240 ;  importance  of,  93 ;  in 
New  England,  237.  241;  preceding 
the  Civil  War,  238;  present  condi- 
tions in.  241 

Cotton  machinery,  American,  237 

Cotton  manufacture,  localities  of,  98 

Cotton  market,  captured  by  America, 

347 

Cotton  rags  used  in  paper-making.  253 

Cottonseed,  by-products  of,  104  ;  prod- 
ucts and  uses  of,  102,  103 ;  treatment 
of,  102 

County  fair,  364 

Cowboys  and  farmers,  no 

Cumberland  Road,  308,  378 

Dairy  industry,  centers  of,  117;  devel- 
opment of,  114;  products,  114-117; 
sanitary  methods  in,  116 

Dates,  82 

Democracy,  49 

Distributing  system,  370 

Dyeing  and  finishing,  102 

Dyes,  home  production  of,  2S3 

Dyestuffs,  281-283;  affected  by  the 
Great  War,  282  ;  beginning  of  manu- 
facture, 282  ;  natural,  281 

Dynamos,  285 

Efficiency,  need  of.  361,  372 

Electric  heating,  288 

Electric    industry,    location    of.    289; 

rapid  development  of,  284,  2S5 
Electric  lighting,  287 


INDEX 


421 


Electric  power,  development  of,  288 

Electrical  machinery  and  apparatus, 
284-289 

Electrification  of  railways,  328 

Employers'  liability,  392 

Engineering  difficulties,  320 

Engines,  229-231 

English  draft  horse,  134 

Erie  Canal,  310  ;  ser\'ices  and  improve- 
ment of,  313 

Evans,  Oliver,  214,  215 

Expert  management,  358 

Exports,  marketing  of,  372 

F'actors,  affecting  production.  5-19; 
determining  localization,  201 

Factory,  development  of,  387 

Factory  system,  100 

Fair,  an  advertising  device,  365 ;  be- 
ginning of  markets,  363 

Fall  line,  12,  16,  30,  202 

Farmers  and  cowboys,  iio 

Fat-tailed  sheep,  128 

Ferries  and  bridges,  301 

Fertilizers,  275;  future  of,  280;  uses 
of,  277 

Figs,  82 

Financing  of  industry,  375-378 

Finishing  and  dyeing,  102 

Firearms,  206 

Fisheries,  140-152;  Atlantic-coast,  148; 
government  support  of,  152  ;  Gulf, 
149;  importance  of,  144;  influence 
on  shipping,  143 ;  lake  and  river, 
151;  New  England,  142,  148;  Pacific- 
coast,  149;  products  of,  144;  promo- 
tion of  our,  151 

Fishing  grounds,  142 

Fishing  rights,  144 

Flax,  234 

Flour,  export  of,  219;  manufacture  of, 
213;  shipment  of,  216 

Food,  conservation  of,  221;  distribu- 
tion of,  368 

Food  industries,  importance  of.  210 

Foreign  commerce,  American  interest 

in.  359 
Foreign  consumers,  374 
Forestsof  theUnited  States.  27,29;  pres- 
ent condition  of,  28 ;  resources  of,  245 
Forwarding  agencies,  373 
F"oundries  and  rolling  mills,  224 
FVeight  rates  in  the  United  States,  35 1 
Frontier,   passing  of,  52 ;    persistence 
of,  51 ;  society  of,  45,  47 


Fruit,  raising  of,  in  the  United  States, 
76;  transportation  of,  71  ;  and  vege- 
tables, 70-82 

Furnaces  and  stoves.  225 

Furniture,  imported  from  England.  249 

Furniture  industry,  249;  early  develop- 
ment of,  250;  present  conditions  of, 
252;  progress  of,  251 

Galena,  186 

Gallatin's  report,  307 

Gardening,  conditions  of.  70.  71 

Gas,  26 

Gasoline,  165 

Geological  Survey,  the  United  States, 

30 

Germany,  commercial  rival  of  Great 
Britain,  356;  government  oversight 
of  industry  in,  359 

Gloves,  266 

Gold,  26,  1 73-1 78 ;  cause  of  high  prices, 
175;  coinage,  174;  development  of 
industry,  178;  increase  of,  175;  na- 
ture of,  173;  possessed  by  Indians, 
174;  processes  of  mining,  176,  177 

Goodyear  invention,  269 

Government  enterprises,  377 

Government  oversight  of  industry  in 
Germany,  359;   in  Great  liritain,  358 

Government  support  of  fisheries,  152 

Grapefruit,  81 

Grapes,  79,  80 

Great  Britain,  economic  strength  of, 
355  ;  government  oversight  of  indus- 
try in,  358 ;  industrial  rivals  of,  356 

Great  Lakes  system,  334 ;  improvement 

of,  334 
Great  War,  effects  on  dyestuffs,  282 ; 

effect  on  shipbuilding,  341 
Group  life  insurance,  395 
Gulf  fisheries,  149 
Gulf  Stream,  10 

Hard  coal,  155;  used  for  smelting,  169 

Hardware  and  tools,  226 

Harness,  266 

Hemlock,  used  in  tanning,  260 

Hemp,  244 

Hides,  117;  importation  of,  262 

Hogs,  1 1 8-1 24  ;  fattened  on  corn,  1 20  ; 

introduced    into   this    country,    irS; 

slaughtering  of,  123 
Homespun,  233 
Horse  car,  135 
Horse-brccding,  133 


INDUSTRY  AM)    IKADK 


Horseflesh.  1 38 

Horsehide.  uses  of,  138 

Horse-racing,  135 

Horses.  1 33- 1 38;  demand  for.  136; 
introduced  into  America,  133;  re- 
gions for  raising.  137 

Human  element,  factor  in  production, 

33-43 
Human  races,  ^j 
Hydrogen,  1 1 

Immigrants,  character  of  recent,  41; 
excellent  quality  of  early,  388  ;  labor 
of,  386,  389;  problem  of,  42  ;  white,  39 

Immigration,  importance  of,  43  ;  mid- 
century,  40;  since  1882,  41 

Importance  of  distributing  products, 
291 

Incandescent  lamp,  287 

Independence,  cause  of,  50 

Indians,  34 ;  influence  on  white  race, 
35;  unfitted  for  slavery,  37 

Indigo,  281 

Industrial  development  and  trade,  345 

Industrial  life,  part  of  social  life,  397; 
stimulation  of,  353 

Industrial  motors,  286 

Industrial  Revolution,  379 

Industrial  supremacy  of  Great  Britain 
challenged,  356 

Industries,  agricultural,  55-104;  con- 
nected with  corn  and  wheat,  63 ; 
localization  of,  201-209 

Industry,  American,  346 ;  financing  of. 
375-378;  and  production,  362;  sci- 
entific organization  of,  356,  357 

Inland  water  transportation,  301 

Insurance,  395  ;  by  Union  Pacific  Rail- 
road, 396 

Interchangeable  parts,  229 

International  competition,  353-361 

Inventory  of  resources,  22 

Investment,  colonial,  376 

Iron,  24,  166-172,  197;  demand  for, 
170;  demand  for,  in  war,  172;  pro- 
duction of,  171 ;  smelting  of,  167, 169, 
170 

Iron  industry,  colonial,  167;  prior  to 
i860,  169 

Iron  manufacture,  early  localization  of, 
222  ;  improved  processes  of,  223 

Ironworking  machinery,  227 

Irrigation,  1 1 

Jewelry  and  silverware,  231 


Karakul  shjeep,  127 

Kelp,   source   of   potassium    sulphate, 

279 
Kerosene,  165 
Knowledge,  need  of.  372 

Labor  adjustments,  3S5-399 

Labor,  and  capital,  392  ;  in  colonies, 
386;  immigrant,  386 ;  importance  of, 
385;  independence  of  American, 
200;  mobility  of  American,  199; 
need  of  unskilled,  3SS ;  needed  in 
new  country,  385  ;  needed  in  South, 
37;  skilled,  3S8 

Labor  legislation,  391 

Labor  movement,  390 

Labor  organization,  391 

Labor  question,  396 

Labor  supply,  203 

Labor  union,  391 

Labor-saving  in  meat-packing,  212 

Labrador  current,  10 

Lake  traffic,  335 

Land,  basis  of  life,  5  ;  general  location 
of  our,  6 ;  quality  of  our,  7 

Land-wealth  of  the  United  .States,  5 

Lard  hog,  122 

Large-scale  production,  economies  of, 
382 

Latitude,  factor  in  production,  8 

Lead,  26,  186 

Lead  paint,  274 

Leather,  259-267;  varieties  of,  261 

Leather  industry,  in  the  colonies,  259; 
present  conditions  in,  267 

Lemons,  82 

Liability,  limited,  3S3 

Lime,  11 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  302 

Linen,    234 ;    used    in    paper-making, 

253 

Linseed  oil,  234 

Live  stock,  export  of,  1 13 

Llama,  107 

Localization  of  industries.  201-209; 
factors  in  determining,  201 

Locomotive  engines,  231,  321 

Lubricating  oils,  165 

Lumber,  245-252 

Lumbering,  247  ;  early  processes,  246 ; 
importance  of  industn,^  249;  localiza- 
tion of  industry,  247 ;  shifting  of 
industry,  24S 

Lynn.  205 

Lyons  of  America,  244 


INDEX 


423 


Machinery,  for  paper-making.  254;  in 
boot  and  shoe  industry,  264 

Mackerel  fishing,  147 

Magnesia,  1 1 

Maize,  see  Corn 

Manufactures,  antiquity  of,  193;  demand 
for  our,  19S;  development  of  our, 
194;  value  of  our,  194-196 

Manufacturing  industries,  193-290 

Marine  engines,  230 

Market,  as  a  fair,  363 ;  expansion  of, 
368 ;  rise  of  modern,  367 

Marketing,  362-374 ;  combination  of 
methods  for,  37 1  ;  complexities  of, 
369;  problems  of,  unknown  to  colo- 
nials, 362  ;  three  stages  of,  370 

Meat,  demand  for,  108;  packing  of, 
113,  210,  211 

Men,  demand  for  American,  52;  quality 

of,  7 

Mercerizing,  10 1 

Merchant  marine,  336-344  ;  decline  of, 
341  ;  expansion  of,  339;  meaning  of, 
336 

Merino  sheep,  125 

Metal  industries,  progress  of,  232 

Metallic  minerals,  154 

Metallic  products,  222-232 

Metals,  importance  of,  222 

Michigan  deposits  of  copper,  J85 

Middleman,  372 

Mileage  of  United  States  railroads,  326 

Milling,  development  of,  214;  improve- 
ments in,  219;  present  conditions  of, 
220;  westward  movement  of,  216 

Milling  centers,  214 

Millstone,  219 

Mineral  fertilizers,  26 

Mineral  industries,  153-192 

Mineral  resources  of  the  United  States, 
22,  26 

Minerals,  metallic  and  nonmetallic,  154 

Mining  industry,  importance  of,  154 

Mining  regions,  iron,  170 

Minneapolis,  milling  center,  217 

Mississippi  flatboats,  302 

Mittens,  266 

Model  manufacturing  town,  243 

Monopoly,  3S2  ;  of  cotton  market,  347 

Motors,  286 

Mules,  138-139;  nature  of,  138;  value 
of,  139;  virtues  of,  138 

Naphtha,  165 

National  Chamber  of  Commerce,  361 


National  Conser\'ation  Commission, 
22,  30 

National  Forest  Service,  27 

Natural  materials  for  manufacture,  193 

Natural  productive  areas  of  the  United 
States,  15-19 

Natural  resources,  20-32 

Natural  waterways,  330-336  ;  improve- 
ments of,  314;  traffic  of,  330;  two 
great  systems  of,  331 

Nearness  to  markets,  factor  in  manu- 
facturing, 202 

Nearness  to  materials,  factor  in  manu 
facturing,  201 

Negroes,  34,  36 ;  education  of,  39 ; 
position  of,  in  the  United  States,  38 

New  England,  fisheries  of,  142  ;  prom- 
inent in  iron  manufacture,  227 

New  York  City,  sources  of  milk  supply, 

i'5 
Nitric  acid,  274 

Nitrogen,  11,  275,  279;  sources  of,  280 
Nonmetallic  minerals,  154 
North  America,  plant  and  animal  life 

of,  31 
Northern  Forest,  27 

Oak  bark,  used  in  tanning,  260 

Oats,  64,  65 

Ocean,  factor  in  climate,  9 

Ocean  currents,  10 

Oil,  grades  of,  163;  production  of,  164 

Oil  era,  162 

Oil  industry,  development  of,  163 

Oiled  paper,  used  for  glass,  2:;^ 

Olives,  82 

Oranges,  81 

Origin  of  best  breeds,  107 

Oxygen,  1 1 

Oysters,  i  50 

Pacific-coast  fisheries,  149 

Pacific  Forest,  28 

Pacific  Slope,  19 

Panama  Canal,  313 

Paper,  252-258;  made  from  cotton. 
253;  made  from  linen,  253;  made 
from  wood  pulp,  255 ;  some  uses  of. 

258 

Paper-making,  in  colonies,  253;  early 
stages  of.  252  ;  rapidity  of  develop- 
ment, 256;  recent  developments, 
255;  use  of  machinery  in,  254 

Papyrus  plant,  252,  253 

Paraffin.  165 


424 


IXDISTRV  AND  'I'RADK 


Teaches,  7S 

Tears,  Sj 

Teas,  74,  75 

Tercheron,  134,  135 

Tetroleum,  25,  160-165;  commercial 
products  of,  165;  early  industry, 
161  ;  early  uses  of,  160;  a  medicine 
and  a  nuisance,  161 

Philosopher's  stone,  222 

Phosphate  rock,  276 

Phosphates,  26 

Thosphorus,  11,  275,  276 

Thysical  factors  influencing  production, 
S-13 

Pipe  lines,  165 

Placer-mining,  176 

Planing  mill,  249 

Plant  and  animal  life,  31 

Plant  foods,  11,  275 

Plums,  82 

Population,  centers  of,  37  ;  concentra- 
tion   of,   369 ;    of    temperate   zones, 

47 
Pork,    demand    by   slave    states,    1 20 ; 

wide  use  of,   119 
Pork-packing,  123 
Portland  cement,  191,  192,  279 
Post  roads,  300 
Potash,  1 1,  278 
Potassium,  275,  278 
Potassium  sulphate,  279 
Potatoes,  72,  73 
Produce-marketing,  366 
Production,  center  of  attention,  362 
Products,  chemical  treatment  of,  273 
Progress,  basis  of,  22 
Progressiveness,  American,  199 
Prosperity  in  America,  51 
Public  works,  308 
Puzzolan,  191,  192 

Railroad  era,  317 

Railroads,  317-329;  beginnings  of,  317, 
318;  and  coal,  157;  competition  with 
water  routes,  333  ;  earlier  lines,  319  ; 
effect  on  prices,  349 ;  electrification 
of,  328;  local  at  first,  319;  mileage 
of,  326;  previous  to  Civil  War,  324; 
progress  after  Civil  War,  325;  rates 
on,  326;  recent  construction,  326; 
retardation  of  development,  322 ; 
revolution  wrought  by,  328  ;  systems 
of,  lacking,  322 ;  transcontinental 
lines,  325;  trunk  lines,  324;  to  the 
West,  322 


Rainfall,  and  agriculture,  1 1  ;  factor  in 

production,   10 
Raspberries,  82 
Refrigeration,  1 1  2 
Resources,  rich  in  the   United  States, 

'97 
Revolution  wrought  by  raihoads,  328 
Rice,  68,  69 
Killeaux,  Norbert,  90 
Rivalry,  in  early  trade,  354;  for  world 

market,  354 
River  navigation,  factors  favoring,  332 
River  traffic,  early,  331  ;    present-day, 

334 
Road-building,  growth  of   interest  in, 

304;  modern,  310;  unprofitable,  305 
Road  companies  and  state  enterprises, 

305 

Roads,  colonial,  299 ;  insufficiency  of 
early,  299 

Rochester,  flour  production  in,  215 

Rocky  Mountain  Forest,  28 

Rocky  Mountains,  18 

Rolling  mills  and  foundries,  224 

Roman  cement,  191 

Rubber,  268-272;  demand  for,  270; 
early  uses  of,  268 ;  growth  of  indus- 
try, 269  ;  uses  of  old,  272 

Rubber  footwear,  271 

Rubber  products,  271 

Rye,  67,  68 

Saddles,  266 

Sale  by  description,  371;  direct  and 
indirect,  373 

Salt-water  fleet,  336 

Sawmills,  246 

Sea  traffic,  301 

Sea-island  cotton,  16,  96 

Sealing,  150 

Self-sufficiency,  dangers  of,  374 

Seneca  oil,  161 

Sheep,  124-132 ;  breeding  for  meat,  128; 
fat-tailed,  128;  merino,  125;  mutton 
breeds  of,  127;  utility  of,  124;  west- 
ward movement  of  industry,  129 

Sheep-raising,  early,  125;  countries  of, 

130 

Shipbuilding,  colonial,  339 

Shipment  of  flour,  216 

Shipping,  as  an  investment,  344 

Shoes  and  boots,  261 

Silk  industry,  242-244;  after  1840,  243; 
development  of,  242 ;  recent  develop- 
ment of,  244 


INDEX 


42. S 


Silver,  26,  178-1S1;  a  by-product,  180; 

coinage  of,  181;  discoveries  of,  179; 

high  value  of,  178 
Silver-mining,  colonial,  179 
Silverware  and  jewelry,  231 
Skins  as  clothing,  259 
Slate,  26 

Slater,  Samuel,  237,  238 
Slaughtering  and  meat-packing,  210 
Slave  trade,  38 
Slavery.  36 
Smelting,  167 
Social  development,  44-53 
Social  life,  American,  52 
Sodium  products,  275 
Soft  coal,  155  ;  used  for  smelting,  170 
Soil,  and  climate,  12;  definition  of,  11  ; 

productivity  of,  12 
Solvay,  275 
Soo  Canal,  334 
Sorghum,  69 
Southern  Forest,  28 
Specialization  by  cities,  208 ;  cases  of, 

207 
Spelter,  187 
Spinning,  99 

Standard  Oil  Corporation,  165 
Standardization  of  parts,  228 
State  enterprises  and  road  companies, 

305 

State  works,  given  up  by  states,  316 

Steamboat,  302  ;  river,  332 

Steel  ships,  342 

Stone,  190;  development  of  industry, 
191 

Storage  batteries,  286 

Stoves  and  furnaces,  225 

Strawberries,  82 

Suez  Canal,  313 

Sugar,  83-91  ;  manufacture  of,  89-91  ; 
production  of,  83  ;  source  of,  83.  85 

Sugar  beet,  76,  85 

Sugar  cane,  85 ;  introduced  in  America, 
86 ;  production  of,  86 

Sulphide  of  lead,  186 

Sulphur,  1 1 

Sulphuric  acid,  274 

Superphosphate,  276 

Swine,  118-124;  breeds  of,  119;  loca- 
tion of  industry,  121 

Tanning,  260 
'J'elephone,  288 

Temperate  zone,  labor  in,  48 ;  popula- 
tion of,  47  ;  resourcefulness  in,  48 


Terminals  for  ships,  343 

Textile  industries,   233-244 :    colonial, 

Thomas  slag,  277 
Tools  and  hardware.  226 
Topography,  influence  ori  production. 

10 
Trade,    between    specializing    groups, 

291  ;  and  civilization,  345;  freedom  of, 
1 98  ;  and  industrial  development,  345 

Traffic,  early  river,  331 

Trails,  Indian,  295;  routes  of  railroads, 
296 

Transcontinental  lines,  325 

Transportation,  291-352;  and  Ameri- 
can industry,  346;  blessings  of  cheap, 
350 ;  center  of  American  history,  346 ; 
colonial,  297  ;  and  communication, 
351  ;  cost  of,  305  ;  development  of, 

292  ;  early  American.  293  ;  effect  on 
city  growth,  348  ;  effect  on  property 
values,  347;  on  Great  Lakes,  197. 
198,335;  Indian,  293,  296;  influence 
on  American  industrial  development, 
345-352;  inland  water,  301;  and 
lower  rates,  349 ;  and  national  well- 
being,  352  ;  need  of,  292  ;  and  politi- 
cal unification,  348;  on  sea,  301; 
and  the  settlement  of  the  West,  298; 
twentieth-century  rates,  350;  vital 
factor  in  industry,  347 

"  Travois,"  Indian,  297 

Tropical  climate,  effect  on  man,  45 

Tropics,  economic  dependence  of,  46; 

political  dependence  of,  46 
Troy,  205 
Trunk  lines,  324 
Tungsten  lamp,  287 
Turnpikes,  304-3  ro;  success  of,  304 

United  States,  commercial  rival  of 
Oreat  Britain,  356;  land-wealth  of. 
5;  natural  productive  areas  of,  15-19; 
water  power  of,  30 

United  .States  Proper,  6 

Utilization  of  natural  resources,  21 

Vacuum  pan,  for  sugar  manufacture.  89 
Vaseline,  165 

Vegetables,   and    fruits,   70-82  ;    trans- 
portation of,  7 1 
Vulcanite,  269,  271 

Wages,  colonial,  390 

Wall  paper,  256;  styles  in,  257 


4^6 


IXDrSTRV   AND    IKADK 


N\  .11  dcinaiul  toi  iron,  17  J 

Waste,  elimination  in  packing  houses, 
J 13;  of  natural  resources,  ^o 

Water  power,  2S,  30 ;  factor  in  manu- 
facturing. 202  ;  limits  to  use  of,  31 

Water  routes,  competition  with  rail- 
roads, 333 

Waterways,  extent  of  inland,  336;  im- 
portance of  minor,  330;  natural.  314; 
value  for  slow  freight,  315 

Wealth  in  domesticated  animals,  106 

Weaving.  99 

Weekly  market,  365 

Welland  I'anal,  334 

Western  High  Plains,  17 

Western  Plateaus.  18 

Whaling,  144;  decline  of.  145 

Wheat.  60;  in  the  colonies,  61  ;  indus- 
tries connected  with,  63  ;  production 
of,  63 ;  in  the  West,  62 


\\  ildcrness  Road,  309 

Whitney.  Kli,  94 

Winds,  factor  in  climate,  9 

Wood,  importance  of,  245 

Wood     pulp,    used    in    paper-making, 

-55 
\\  ool,  imports.  132  :  and  shearing,  131  ; 

weight  of.  132 
Woolen    industry,    2^4-236;    progress 

of,   236 
Workmen's    compensation,  393 ;    laws 

providing  for,  394 
World  market,  rivalry  for,  354 
World's  Fair,  365 

Yankee,  4.S 

Zinc,  26,  187 


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